Growing Up Geller
by KateToast
Summary: Emma Geller growing up and going through some big 'firsts', as seen through the eyes of her mother. Post finale vignettes, ranging from Emma's first day of school to her wedding day.
1. School

**Disclaimer**: How I wish Friends was mine... but it isn't.

**A/N**: Seriously, I need some sort of mental help, because I'm beginning another chaptered fic whilst still working on _PMAD_ (which I'm working on, but I haven't had much time lately!). In Rachel's POV, no less! I can't help it, I just feel compelled to write from her perspective for some reason. I've been writing this one while I've had writer's block for my other fic, so it's nearly done already, so updates will be very frequent.

This one is sort of similar to _Rachel Reflects_, except it isn't in first-person and it's Rachel observing the 'firsts' in her daughter's life and sometimes giving 'life lesson'-y advice, because I love the mother/daughter-ness. Basically, it's Emma growing up, post-finale.

**Growing Up Geller**

**XXX**

"Mommy! The room is right here! Look!" Emma Geller shouted as she yanked on her mother's hand, pulling her towards the classroom where she would be attending preschool for the next nine months. The outspoken three- (almost four-) year-old skipped happily, not a care in the world.

Her mother, on the other hand, was a wreck.

Rachel had woken up that morning, something bothering her deep down in the pit of her stomach. It wasn't morning sickness; no, at seven months pregnant, Rachel was passed that phase (for the most part). She hadn't realized what it was until her daughter had run into she and Ross' bedroom, jumped up to join her parents on the bed, and exclaimed, "I'm going to school today!"

It was her little girl's first day of school. And that fact terrified Rachel.

After quitting her job at Ralph Lauren, marrying Ross (for real, this time), and moving to Westchester, only a few streets away from Monica and Chandler, Rachel had really come into the role of 'stay-at-home-mom', which was definitely a full-time job in itself. But she loved it; she loved having breakfast and dinner with her husband and daughter, and taking walks with Emma, and visiting Monica, Chandler and the twins, and driving into the city to shop or meet up with Phoebe and Mike, and going to see Jack and Judy or Sandra or Leonard.

And now, she'd have to do all of those things alone. Well, sure, only for two months, until the baby was born, but that still didn't change the fact that her little girl was growing up fast, and was now about to begin her first day of school.

Ross was a few steps behind mother and daughter, finishing up a phone call with the head of the paleontology department at NYU. He'd recently been given an additional class, and was now hoping to work hard enough to get head of the department sometime in the future.

"All right, Em, Mommy can't go that fast right now," Rachel said as Emma pulled harder on her hand, leading her through a doorway and into a classroom that was decorated brightly. The baby kicked a nice, hard kidney shot in her stomach, and she winced slightly, wondering if this kid was going to be a soccer player.

A board set up right near the door displayed the date (September 3rd, 2006), and had the names of each child in the class posted below the two teachers' names.

Ross came up on the other side of Emma so she was situated between her parents, his cell phone put away. "Aw, look at the cute dancing apples," he said, pointing towards the board.

Rachel rolled her eyes, secretly fighting back the urge to cry. "Yeah, yeah."

Bending down to her level, Ross asked Emma, "What do you think?"

"There's alotta kids," Emma decided, rocking back and forth in her new black shoes, bought especially for this occasion, along with her blue dress and matching headband.

A young-looking woman approached them at that moment, wearing a nametag that read, "Miss Bradley". She grinned at the family. "Hi, I'm Lauren Bradley, one of the teachers."

Rachel accepted her proffered hand and smiled at the woman. "Hi. Nice to meet you. I'm Rachel Geller." Rachel had to admit that she still got a little thrill when she introduced herself with her married name.

"Ross Geller," Ross informed her, also shaking the teacher's hand. "And this is Emma." He put his hands on his daughter's shoulders.

Miss Bradley bent down and smiled. "Hi, Emma. That's a pretty dress."

"Thank you," Emma replied politely, having learned her manners very early on from Aunt Monica.

"When's your birthday?"

"October twenty-third," she said proudly.

Miss Bradley nodded. "Well, you're one of the oldest kids in the class!" She stood straight again, a broad smile still on her face. "So, I'm sure you two read the letter we sent out. Morning class begins at eight and ends at one." She turned to Rachel with bright eyes. "Oh, when are you due?"

Rachel placed a hand on her bulging stomach. "Oh, November."

"Well, it's always great for kids to have siblings. You know, it helps them learn sharing and responsibility," Miss Bradley informed them.

Ross nodded. "And how to fend for yourself." Both women blinked, and he shook his head. "Well, you know, if one sibling takes, say, all the food… long story," he said quickly as Rachel glared at him.

Emma was watching longingly as a few kids built some structures with wooden blocks. Rachel sighed as she also observed some parents that were slowly leaving the classroom, obviously having a difficult time letting go of their child. She felt their pain.

"All right, well, if that's it, then Emma can come with me and get to know the other kids, and you guys can get going," Miss Bradley said gently, extending her hand to Emma. The little girl accepted, eager to play.

"Oh-okay," Rachel managed to say as Ross bent over, kissed his daughter's head, and ruffled her light hair.

"Be good," he instructed.

"Have fun, sweetie," Rachel said, the waterworks on the brink of starting. She smoothed Emma's soft hair.

Miss Bradley led the small girl away slowly, and she only waved once before joining the fun with the other kids.

Ross directed Rachel out of the classroom, his hand pressed against the small of her back. Once in the hallway, she let her tears fall.

"Hey, hey, come on," Ross said gently, turning his wife so she was facing him. He leaned forward. "We're gonna pick her up in a few hours. It'll go by like that." He snapped his fingers on the last word.

"I-I know," Rachel blubbered. "She's just growing up so _fast_. Why can't she stay a baby forever?"

"Because that's not how it works," Ross replied as they walked down the hallway and towards the doors near the parking lot.

"This is her first day of school," Rachel pointed out as they entered into the sunlight of the morning.

"I know. It's really big," Ross agreed. "But she's going to have a lot of other firsts we can look forward to."

"Did you feel sad when Ben first went to school?"

"Yes. And now he's eleven and I'm more worried about some of his teenage 'firsts'," Ross confided. "I'm dreading the day he comes home from school with a black eye, or tells me he likes a girl."

Rachel gasped a little. "Oh! I can't even imagine Emma telling me she likes a boy."

As they got into the car, Ross placed a hand on Rachel's stomach and smiled. "Well, just think, we've got another whole person coming who's going to go through a series of 'firsts', too."

His words did little to help soothe Rachel's mood. She and Ross spent the morning at home, lounging around and doing mostly nothing. Rachel was too nervous to do anything, anyway.

When 12:45 crept up on them and it was time to pick Emma up, Rachel just didn't have the heart- or energy- to go, so Ross departed by himself. He returned thirty minutes later with an extremely chatty girl.

"I played with blocks, an' I got to sit on a beanbag when Miss Bradley read a story, an' I painted a picture for you." She handed her mother a piece of paper, with four people on it. "See, that's you and Daddy," she pointed out, "and that's me an' the baby."

Rachel started crying again and held her daughter close. "I really like school," Emma said, muffled since her face pressed against her mother's shirt.

"I'm glad, sweetie."

And so by the next day, school was no longer a 'first' for Emma Geller.

And yet, her _very_ first day of school. How had it crept up so fast?

**XXX**


	2. Fight

**Disclaimer**: Friends is not mine.

**A/N**: Wow! Thanks, everyone, for the great feedback! I'm glad you like Emma as a child (I always worry when writing children, because I don't want to make them come off annoying or bratty, unless I want them to be).

Right now the story is sort of... eh. But I promise it gets better as Emma gets older. I actually like the later chapters more than the beginning ones.

Oh, and this story fits into the universes I created with _'Everything's Changed'_ and _'Birthday Video'_. Just to let you know.

**XXX**

Rachel's heart nearly stopped when she pulled up to the elementary school to pick up Emma one day in late spring and saw her daughter with a large bandage over her hand. The first-grader waved good-bye to her friends and entered the car like nothing was wrong, however.

"Hi Jen," Emma greeted her one-year-old sister, who was strapped into a car seat in the back. "Hi Mommy."

"Hey, Emma," Rachel replied, pulling out of the pick-up line in a daze. "Uh, how was school?"

"Fine," her daughter answered, making faces at the baby.

"So what happened to your hand?" Rachel asked as casually as possible, doing her best not to panic.

Emma shifted uncomfortably in her seat in the back, which her mother noticed out of the corner of her eye. "James Brolly pushed me down," she said in a small voice.

Rachel's foot hovered over the brake, ready to turn right around and head back to the school to give a piece of her mind to this James Brolly's mother. "_What_?"

"It isn't bad," Emma assured her mom. "I was on the swing and he wanted to get on and so I told him to wait his turn and when I got off I let Krissy use it next and James got mad at me and pushed me and I fell over and scraped my hand and then I got up and kicked him and then the teacher came and made us sit at the wall for the rest of recess and wrote notes for us to give to our moms and dads."

Rachel blinked. "You got into a fight?"

Emma shrugged. "I guess so." Her eyes watered a little. "Are you mad?"

Stopping at a red light, Rachel turned towards the back momentarily, so she could watch her oldest daughter. "No, sweetie, I'm just… surprised. You usually don't do things like this."

"I didn't mean to!" Emma defended in a loud voice, nearly hysterical. She was then silent the rest of the ride home.

As they pulled into the driveway, Rachel was still trying to process. Her little girl had gotten into a fight? A real, hands-on _fist_-fight? She'd _never_ gotten into a fight before, with _anybody_. Rachel was still resisting the urge to find out where this James Brolly lived, march over there, and ask his parents why their son is such a bully.

Emma ran straight into the house once the car was parked in the driveway. Rachel sighed and got Jen out of her carseat and headed inside. Ross was sitting in the living room, playing with some blocks while some sort of dinosaur documentary droned on in the background. Three-year-old Sean was asleep on the couch, his dark hair the only thing sticking out from under a blanket.

Rachel cleared her throat, and Ross looked up, then quickly stood. "Uh, I was just helping him finish… with the blocks…" He then noticed that their son was napping on the couch.

"Never mind that, Ross," Rachel said as she placed Jen in the playpen situated in the living room. "Our daughter got into a fight today."

"Wh-what? Is she okay?" Ross questioned, slightly frantic.

"She cut her hand and kicked a kid and now she's up in her room sulking." Rachel placed her hands on her hips, not sure of what to do with herself.

"She kicked a kid?" Ross seemed to be attempting to wrap his mind around the situation. "But she's so… she doesn't do that kind of stuff."

"I know," Rachel agreed. "And her teacher sent home a note for her to give to us."

Ross plopped down onto the easy chair. "Oh, boy," he said. "Why would she get into a fight in the first place?"

"Apparently, this James kid pushed her down, and she retaliated."

"I'm guessing this isn't the time to be proud that our daughter can hold her own against a boy?" Ross asked.

Rachel shook her head. "No." She sighed. "I'm gonna go talk to her."

"Okay."

Making her way up the stairs and down the second floor hallway, Rachel considered the whole matter. She'd gotten into fights before, with her sisters, the most recent one having been Thanksgiving a few years prior. It was a mistake, and a petty reason to be mean in the first place, and Rachel had recognized that. Now she just needed to help her daughter see that fighting was most definitely _not_ the answer.

"Emma?" she asked cautiously, lightly knocking on the girl's door. When no answer came, she opened the door and entered. "Em?"

Emma was lying on her bed, flipping through a book of stickers. Rachel sat down on the end of her bed. "Sweetie, why did you kick James?"

"Because he pushed me," her daughter responded, still looking at the stickers. "He's always mean to me."

"You mean he's done things to you before?" Rachel questioned.

"Yes. He's a big bully, and everyone was scared of him, so I decided to kick him."

"Okay," Rachel said slowly, "But honey, fighting doesn't solve anything. If someone is mean to you, you don't want to be mean back. I mean, you should stand up for yourself, but you shouldn't resort to violence." Feeling very wise at the moment, Rachel watched as Emma put down the book of stickers and sat up.

"Why are kids mean?" she enquired honestly.

"Because," Rachel began, letting out a long breath and thinking. "Because sometimes it makes people feel better to pick on other kids."

"Oh," Emma said, accepting the reason. "So now that I kicked James, is he gonna be nice to me?"

"Maybe," Rachel shrugged. "There's going to be a lot of people in the future who are mean to other people for what seems like no reason; it happens every day. But you just be the great girl you are, and you'll be fine."

Emma shifted a little, and then came closer to her mother so she was leaning against her. "Okay."

Rachel put her arm around Emma. "Good."

They stayed in that position for a while, until Emma asked casually, "So does this mean you don't hafta see the note from my teacher?" The question just proved to Rachel that this girl was most definitely her daughter.

"You're so not getting off that easy."

And so the next time Emma came home with a note from the teacher, this time saying she'd put glue onto the seat of a girl she didn't like, Rachel wasn't as surprised. It wasn't her first 'retaliation'.

(Though technically it was more of a battle of pranks, and Rachel found the glue-on-the-seat quite clever.)

But still. Emma's first fight. Couldn't they have avoided this one all together?

**XXX**


	3. Crush

**Disclaimer**: If Friends were mine, a lot of stuff would be different. And it would've gotten cancelled after the first season.

**A/N**: I am just astounded at all these great reviews! Thank you, everyone, who has taken the time to read and evaluate this story, especially those of you who review every chapter. I wasn't totally sure about this story when I first posted it... but now you've all given me the confidence to keep it going :)

I must say, I love writing Mom!Rachel.

**XXX**

Emma had never been good about cleaning her room, even when asked to by her parents.

One day in the beginning of the spring, Rachel was home with nothing to do. Emma was at school, nearly done with her elementary career, while Sean was just beginning his. Jen was finishing up her year of preschool before heading off to kindergarten. Ross was teaching one of his classes in the city, and was then going to pick of their youngest daughter and pay a visit to his parents. Every adult she knew was at work.

So, Rachel decided to wander into her eldest daughter's room. As expected, everything was placed about in a haphazard manner. Now, Monica may have been the neat freak of the group, but even Rachel herself kept things tidier than Emma.

The bed wasn't made (though the three kids had never made their beds in the mornings before school, ever), pens, pencils, and paper littered her desk, and there were wrappers and other odds and ends strewn about the floor, leaving very little room to actually walk.

Rachel let out a sigh as she surveyed the area, thankful that they had decided to change the guest room into an actual bedroom for Jen, because otherwise Emma's room would've been twice as trashed with two occupants.

Pictures were posted up for all to see on a bulletin board above her bed, and books filled her bookshelf. As Rachel wandered over to the large piece of furniture, she let her hands glide across the books' spines, seeing some familiar stories from her childhood.

Rachel didn't normally waltz into Emma's room and start going through everything. But if she were being honest with herself, she was really looking for something. A clue, perhaps, to explain her daughter's sudden odd behavior.

Just the evening before, Emma had marched up to her mother after dinner and asked her if she could wear some of her lipstick to school.

Rachel had, of course, said no. But she had promised to let Emma put a little on for a special occasion. It was natural for little girls to observe their mothers put on makeup, and then want to do it too. However, what Rachel hadn't been expecting was her daughter to whine, "But I want to look grown up!", leaving Rachel herself speechless and wondering who, exactly, her little girl wished to impress.

The fourth-grader had been day-dreaming a lot more often. She'd started taking the phone into her bedroom and closing the door behind her, and staying on said phone with one of her little friends for much longer than should be permitted at this age.

Rachel knew what it all meant, but she was having trouble accepting it.

Her baby girl, one of her prides and joys, the first of her three beautiful children, was really growing up.

Sitting on the purple blanket-covered bed, Rachel jumped up slightly when she felt her bottom come in contact with something small, square, and hard. She felt under her until she came up with a notebook.

A diary.

It was one of those moments that Rachel knew she would look back on and wonder why she made the decision she did. She hadn't even realized Emma _kept_ a diary. She herself hadn't started keeping one until sixth grade, and even that was short-lived.

Already feeling guilty, and knowing it was something she'd regret later, Rachel opened the diary, reverting back to a young 20-something in apartment number twenty, eagerly searching through some sort of secret Monica had hidden.

Just because she was a real adult now didn't mean all of her snooping and gossiping tendencies had disappeared.

She flipped through the first page with Emma's name written in large, bold letters and a few random entries with trivial things such as so-and-so said this, and this person likes that person, within them. The next couple of pages had little doodles on them.

The page after those, however, was filled with hearts.

With a boy's name scripted in each one. Each tiny heart that took up all the space of the page had one _specific_ boy's name in them.

The hearts were outlined in red.

Rachel shut the diary quickly, willing herself not to open it again. She may have given this girl life, but everyone deserved some privacy, and Rachel knew she had _definitely_ just overstepped the boundaries.

Oh, Lord, her daughter had a crush on a boy. Now the make-up and wanting to look grown up made sense.

Standing in a slight daze, Rachel made her way out of Emma's bedroom, across the hallway, down the stairs, and finally plopped down on the couch in the living room.

She knew it was going to happen eventually. But that didn't make it any more shocking.

What was next? A boy liking her back? Dates? Boyfriends? Kissing? 'The Talk'?

The thoughts scared Rachel, and not because all of those things could lead to disaster. No, she knew Emma was a great kid and would never do anything unacceptable. But all of this meant that her baby girl was over the 'cooties' stage and was locking herself in her room to talk to her friends about boys.

And she hadn't even told her mother.

So when Monica dropped Emma and Sean off at the house that afternoon (it was the Bing's carpool day), and the siblings bounded into the house and deposited their backpacks on two kitchen chairs, Rachel was waiting with a calm and patient mask on her face, hiding her desperate desire to shout out, "You're too young to like boys!" to her daughter

"How was school?" Rachel asked pleasantly as she smoothed her daughter's light-brown hair gently and sent a smile toward Sean.

"Fine," the two chorused.

"Can I go ride my bike?" Sean asked eagerly.

Rachel nodded. "I'll be out in a second. Stay in the driveway until I get out there, all right?"

He nodded and rushed out the door, and Rachel was struck again by how much he looked like his father.

"So, anything interesting happen today?"

"No."

"Do you have a lot of homework?"

"Sort of."

Ah, talking to children. How stimulating.

Rachel sat down in the chair across from Emma. "So… were all your friends at school today?"

Emma glanced at her mother, confused. "Uh… yeah. Well, actually, Lindsey was sick, but otherwise everybody was there."

Nodding, Rachel watched Emma write her name, date, and the assignment on the top of a piece of white-lined paper. "So it's getting pretty hot out, huh? Dad's going to get Uncle Chandler over here this weekend to help open the pool." She waited for any sort of acknowledgement, and when one wasn't received, continued, "Maybe you can have a pool party. Invite some friends. Girl friends, boy friends."

"Mom," Emma finally whined, "I'm trying to do these math problems."

"Okay, sorry," Rachel said, and waited another few minutes in silence as she formulated a segue way into the topic of boys and crushes. "Hey, Em, what was the name of that boy who invited you to his party next week?"

At these words, Emma seemed to become fidgety and avoided eye-contact with her mother. "Um, Matt Burns," she answered, her cheeks flushing pink.

Bingo. Rachel smiled a little. "Do you like him?"

Emma suddenly looked similar to a deer caught in the headlights. "Um…"

"Because it's okay if you do," Rachel quickly told her. "Developing… feelings for a boy is natural."

Seeming openly interested now, Emma cocked her head to the side slightly. "Really? Because Ashley thinks it's gross. But Sarah likes a boy, too."

"Well, sometimes people like different things," Rachel said, glad that her daughter wasn't squirming away from the subject. "You know, I know this is probably hard to believe right now, but most likely you're going to feel this way about another boy someday, too. Maybe even _more_ than one boy."

"Really?" Emma asked. "It's a weird feeling."

"You get used to it," Rachel assured. "It can be the best feeling in the world if the boy likes you back."

"Like you and Daddy?"

Rachel smiled softly to herself at the mention of she and Ross. His face came to her mind; the way he grinned, how he laughed, the way his hand felt in hers, the few gray hairs that were beginning to show on his dark head. She loved all of him and every part of him.

"Sort of. It's a different kind of feeling when you _love _somebody."

"How do you know if you love somebody?" Emma inquired, her homework forgotten.

"Well… you feel like how you feel when you _like_ somebody, except everything is multiplied times a million," Rachel answered.

Emma considered for a moment. "I don't think I love Matt."

"You've got plenty of time for that in the future, sweetie," Rachel murmured as she stood from the table. "Right now you just worry about your homework, and I'm gonna go outside and make sure Sean has ridden away on his bike."

"Thanks, Mom," Emma said with a small smile. "I love you."

Feeling mushy, Rachel kissed her daughter's head. "I love you, too."

"Now I just have to figure out how to explain all of what you said to Sarah and Ashley and the other girls," Emma said, sounding distressed in a way only a ten-year-old could.

Rachel stepped outside and crossed the lawn, watching her son ride circles in the driveway. How long was it going to be before she would have to have that same conversation with him?

Her daughter's first crush. What a strange thing to go through, knowing your child was growing up and not being able to do anything but give your input and whatever advice they would accept.

Rachel knew that the girl in the house sitting at the kitchen table doing her homework was sure to be on the receiving end of a few crushes herself.

Where was the time going?

**XXX**


	4. Camp

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Friends.

**A/N**: I cannot believe these reviews I'm receiving. You all are too kind, and I just hope I can keep pleasing you all as this story continues. Not being a mother myself, I've written this solely on what I've observed in mothers in my own life and other TV shows, books, and movies. I'd hate to find I'm disgracing mothers everywhere ;). Also, thanks to **Spence** for mentioning my somewhat over-use of sentence fragments. I'll be sure to monitor from now on :) (I seem to not be able to resist them!)

School is beginning very soon again, which sadly means updates of any story I'm doing is going to slow down even more than before. I'm going to have to somehow find the time to write and post new chapters.

This one is sort of short and random. The others after this are better, I promise.

**XXX**

"I wanna go to camp too!" Jen cried as all five Gellers piled out of the car and into the drop-off area at Camp Stony Brooke in Connecticut.

Rachel grasped her five-year-old daughter's tiny hand in hers and led her towards the back of the car, where Ross was unloading a few bags full of the possessions Emma would need for two weeks at sleep-away camp.

When Emma had first approached her parents in the early spring, posing the idea of letting her go to overnight camp for two weeks during the summer, Rachel had felt iffy about the whole situation. She wasn't sure her daughter was old enough to be gone from them for that long. However, after Ross had assured her it would be fine and Emma had informed them that two of her best friends from school were going, she had agreed.

And now here they were, dropping Emma off at the place where she would be spending the longest time away from her family she ever had.

"That's it," Ross declared as he tossed a large duffel bag onto the pavement. He turned and lifted his sunglasses so he could get a better view of the large camp.

Rachel stood beside her husband, letting Jenny escape from her grasp and rush over to her big sister, who was checking all of her bags to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything while Sean poked around with a stick he had found.

"It doesn't seem so bad, does it?" Ross asked as he turned to look at his wife with a twinkle in his eye. All Rachel had done since they'd agreed to let Emma go to camp was complain that it would be too hot, or too big, or too dangerous, or too close to the water, or too unsupervised, and what if it was like the book Holes?… the list goes on.

Crossing her arms over her chest, Rachel shrugged noncommittally. "I guess not," she mumbled.

Ross wrapped an arm around her waist. "C'mon, she'll be fine. She's going to be twelve in October, it's not exactly like she's a baby anymore. Ben went to camp a few years ago and he came back unscathed."

"I know," Rachel concurred. "It's just… two weeks is a long time. And I mean, neither of us went to camp."

"Well, I was allergic to everything, so I don't think it would've been a good idea for me," Ross pointed out. "Plus, uh, my parents were already paying for Monica to go to fat camp." He paused. "Wait, what are you talking about? You _did_ go to camp."

Rachel stopped and suddenly recalled her own camp experiences. "Oh yeah. I guess I had tried my best to erase it from my memory. Huh." She chuckled at her forgetfulness. Sobering quickly however, she glanced back at their three children. "What if she hates it and calls us and wants us to come get her?"

Ross walked around Rachel so he was standing right in front of her and they could speak face-to-face. "Then we're going to be taking a road trip to Connecticut." He kissed her lightly and then grabbed her hand. "Lets send her off now, huh?"

"Mom! Sean keeps poking me with the gross stick he found on the ground!" Jen yelped as she circled her parents, trying to get away from her brother.

Ross caught Sean by the shirtsleeve as he was passing by him. "Aw, c'mon, it doesn't hurt!" the boy defended.

Emma cleared her throat, and got everyone's attention. "In case everybody forgot, I'm the one that's leaving for two weeks," she announced, sticking her tongue out at her brother.

She grabbed one of her bags and left the rest for her parents, and led the way towards the large group of camp counselors and other campers and their parents saying goodbye. After introducing themselves to the counselors who would be in charge of the camp, she spotted her two friends and waved enthusiastically before turning back to her family.

Rachel smiled a little. "So, sweetie, I guess this is it."

"Yeah, have a good time, sweetheart," Ross said, bending down a little so Emma could wrap her arms around him in a hug. He kissed her forehead. "I love you."

"Love you too," she mumbled as they disentangled.

Sean stepped up next and stuck his hand out. Emma rolled her eyes and hugged him as well. "I'll miss you, Seany."

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, and Rachel chuckled to herself at the seven-year-old, who still thought that girls had cooties, including his sisters.

Jen latched on to her older sister next, and whimpered a little. "Can I stay with you?"

"I'm sorry, Jenny-Bean, but you've gotta go home with Mom and Dad and Sean," Emma told her, giving her a squeeze and purposely using the nickname 'Jenny-Bean' they'd all been using for forever. "I'll write to you, okay?"

"Okay," the younger girl sniffed, retreating back to her parents and grabbing for Ross' hand.

Emma turned her gaze onto Rachel, who bent down to envelop her daughter in a tight embrace. "Have fun, honey. Make sure to check in with us when you can. And remember to use sunscreen if you're going to be outside for a long time, like if you go to the beach or on a hike or whatever you do at camp. And make sure to spray on some bug spray, because those mosquitoes are awful this time of year and I don't want you to be spending all of your time itching and my mother keeps mentioning West Nile Virus and you definitely don't want to get that. Don't forget about the first aide kit your Aunt Monica and Phoebe and I put together for you; there's Neosporin in it if you get a cut. And drink lots of water, it's important to stay hydrated-"

"Mom," Emma interrupted, "I've got it."

Rachel pulled back with a smile. "Okay, okay, sorry."

"Good luck at work," Emma added.

Nodding, Rachel said, "Thanks. I think I'll need it."

After spending over seven years as a stay-at-home mom, Rachel had found herself missing her job and had decided to check around all of the big clothing companies in the city to see if any were hiring at all. Ironically, Ralph Lauren had been looking for someone to work part-time in the women's department, and she had jumped at the chance to apply. There was a new boss, as Mr. Zelner had found something better over the years, and the new guy, Mr. Force, had decided to hire Rachel because she had the most experience already with the company (her past "issues" at Ralph Lauren had luckily been overlooked). It wasn't as good of a job as she had had, but she was hoping to work her way up again, plus there was the added bonus of still being home in the afternoons with the kids.

"All right, well, see you guys in two weeks!" Emma said excitedly, and waved once more at her family before wandering over to her friends with a large grin plastered on her semi-tanned face, her light hair bumping up and down in it's loose ponytail.

"Well, looks like it's just the four of us," Ross said as they got in the car and he started the engine.

"Can I have Emma's room?" Sean questioned from the back seat.

"She's not going to be gone forever," Ross pointed out.

"When can I go to camp?" Jen asked, bobbing up and down in her seat. "Me and Emma can go together!"

"When you're a little older," Rachel replied.

"Last look, everyone!" Ross exclaimed as they slowly drove by Emma and her friends. The three girls waved to the car.

Once out of the camp, Rachel sighed. "Well, that's it. Emma's gone for two whole weeks."

"What _will_ we do with ourselves?" Ross questioned, sending a wink towards his wife. "Maybe we'll have to see if my parents could baby-sit Sean and Jenny overnight so we can have dinner in the city."

Rachel smiled brilliantly. "I think that would be very nice."

However, on the inside, her heart ached just a little.

She'd never spent this much time away from _any_ of her children, or even Ross in all of the years they'd been friends (and then a couple, and then friends, and then married, and then friends, and then roommates, and then married…).

It was Emma's first time going away to camp.

Why couldn't they have started off small, with something like _day_ camp?

**XXX**


	5. Dance

**Disclaimer**: I do not own... a lot. Including Friends.

**A/N**: I really can't say enough how much I so appreciate you reviewers taking the time to drop positive words and constructive criticisms to this story. I've enjoyed writing it, and I'm glad you've enjoyed reading it :) I'm half-finished with the last chapter now (there are ten in all), so this story will probably be complete by the middle of September.

The adults make an appearance in this one!

**XXX**

"What color lip gloss?"

Rachel looked back and forth between the two tubes her thirteen-year-old daughter was holding. "Um… the lighter pink one. The darker one will be too obvious," she replied wisely.

Mother and daughter were standing in Emma's room, preparing her for her first big, formal dance that her school was holding for seventh and eighth graders the Friday before Valentine's Day. When Rachel had learned about the dance from her eldest girl, she'd leapt at the chance to help her with every minute detail, and had even decided that they needed a shopping spree to celebrate.

(Ross hadn't been too happy when the prices of what they had bought had come in their monthly credit card bill, but Rachel had smoothed it all over with him by saying, "It's her first dance. Get over it.")

Rachel took a step back as she finished touching up Emma's make-up, and looked her daughter up and down proudly. The girl sure cleaned up well, something Ross always insisted his daughter got from her mother.

"You look radiant," Rachel choked out, tears forming in her eyes at the sight of her little girl in a light-blue, spaghetti-strap dress, black pumps on her feet, make-up on her face, paint on her nails, and her hair done in a half-up, half-down fashion. It was hard to believe this beauty had ever been a tiny little baby at one time.

"Really?" Emma asked nervously, obviously self-conscious as she smoothed the front of her dress down and took another look at herself in the mirror. "I hope we didn't overdo it."

"From what you told me your other friends were going to be wearing, I think you'll fit right in," Rachel assured as she stepped behind her daughter and rested her hands on the younger girl's shoulders.

Emma's cheeks colored as she questioned in an embarrassed voice, "Do you think… I look like you did at my age?"

Rachel smiled softly. "Better. You look as if you belong in a magazine."

"Thanks, Mom," Emma said with a timid grin.

"It's what I'm here for." Rachel was about to wrap her arms around her daughter in a hug, when Emma back away.

"Mom!" she whined. "Something will get messed up if you hug me."

"Right," her mother laughed, and instead kissed her cheek quickly.

The whole moment felt so wild to Rachel. She could recall a similar scene in time, when it was _her _getting ready for her first big dance, while _her_ mother fluttered around, dishing out suggestions and compliments at the same time. She almost felt as if she was looking into a mirror of the past at herself when she gazed upon her done-up girl.

"Are you ready for your close-up?" Rachel joked.

Emma looked torn. "Is everybody out there?"

"If by everybody you mean your Dad, Sean, Jenny, Monica and Chandler, Phoebe and Mike, Erica and Jack, and Christopher, then yes, everybody is out there," Rachel replied with a chuckle. "Joey would've come, but we insisted he not spend the money on a plane ticket and that we'd just send pictures."

The group of old friends (minus their west-coast sixth part) had coordinated their schedules and made sure to set aside an evening to have dinner as a large group at least once every few months. It had just so happened that the school dance had been set on the same evening as their gathering, giving everyone the chance to see their favorite seventh-grader all dolled up.

Emma took a deep breath, bracing herself. "All right."

"I'll go first and announce your presence so everyone can be poised and ready with their cameras."

"Thanks, Mom," Emma said sarcastically with an eye-roll she clearly had learned from her father.

Rachel shot her offspring one more grin before exiting her cluttered bedroom, going down the hallway, descending the stairs, and appearing in living room, where all the adults was seated with a cocktail.

"Hey, is she ready?" Ross asked as he jumped up from his spot on one of their armchairs.

"Yes," Rachel affirmed, though she sounded slightly distressed.

"How does she look?" Monica questioned eagerly. "Oh, I can't wait to see our little Em all dressed up!"

Chandler rolled his eyes. "Yeah, it's not like she's ever done it before," he muttered mockingly.

"What dress did she end up picking out?" Phoebe, not having a daughter of her own, was always willing to help in any girly endeavors that her "nieces" Emma, Jen, and Erica were going through.

"You can see for yourself in a second," Rachel replied, glancing around the brightly-decorated room. "Where are the kids?"

"Watching TV in the basement," Mike answered for the group, referring to the spot in the Geller home that the kids always flocked to if they were there.

"They probably won't care that much anyway," Ross said with a wave of his hand.

"All right. Everyone, prepare yourselves." At Rachel's words, Monica, Phoebe, and Ross all whipped out small digital cameras. Rachel made her way to the bottom of the staircase and called up, "Okay, sweetie, we're ready!" She stepped back to stand beside Ross.

Emma appeared nervously in the doorway, still smoothing down her dress and touching her hair lightly. Monica and Phoebe both began to immediately squeal in girlish ways as they stood to approach the young girl.

"Honey, you look incredible!" Monica gushed, as Chandler grinned at his niece and gave her a thumbs-up.

Phoebe nodded. "The boys are going to be flocking like animals at a watering hole." She waved off the odd looks she got for that comparison.

"Sweetheart… look at you, all grown up," Ross said, his voice growing thick with emotion as he took in his daughter's appearance.

"You look just like your Mom did at your age," Monica insisted.

Emma, quiet up until this moment, beamed at her aunt's words. "Thanks. And I love these earrings," she said, referring to the earrings Monica had given her as a Christmas gift, which were now adorning her pierced ears.

Everyone stood for a moment, admiring her in an easy silence, until finally Emma said, "So, um, I'm gonna go grab my bag and head over to Sarah's." Her friend Sarah from the same grade lived just a few doors away, and the two were carpooling to the dance together, along with Sarah's brother, who was a year older.

"Oh no you don't," Rachel said, grabbing her daughter's arm before she could exit. "You're not getting out of having a few pictures taken first." Emma rolled her eyes in frustration.

Soon flashes were blinking in the Gellar's living room as Emma posed for a photo at least once with each person in the room. The other children were brought up out of the basement to also be included in the picture frenzy, until Emma finally got sick of all the attention and declared she was leaving.

"I'll walk you over," Ross said, and he took his daughter's arm in his and they left the house minutes later.

Rachel sat back on the couch with a plop, blowing some hair out of her face. "Wow," was all she could utter.

"She's grown up so fast," Monica agreed.

"I know, I remember when she was just a screaming bundle of skin," Chandler nodded, and the others glanced at him with slight disgust. "Well, babies' bones develop over time… oh, never mind."

"You've got a beautiful girl there, Rachel," Mike said kindly.

Phoebe patted her friend on the knee when she noticed Rachel's sad mood. "What's up?"

Rachel sighed. "This is just the first step, isn't it?" she questioned the room. "Next thing you know she'll be driving, partying every weekend, drinking up a storm, dating unsuitable boys…"

"Uh, Rach," Monica cut in. "She isn't you."

"She could be!" Rachel shook her head; her friends didn't understand what it was like to watch your oldest child go out into the big, bad world and you couldn't be there to protect them anymore.

Well, okay, _technically_ they did know, since they all had children of their own, but it was different in this case. Emma was the oldest child out of all of them; she was setting the example that the other kids would want to follow.

"Rachel, she's a good kid," Chandler pointed out, obviously in one of his "wise parent" moods.

"Yeah, honey, you and Ross have done a great job, she's going to be fine," Monica chimed in.

"It's just a dance," Phoebe reminded.

Rachel finally put a small smile on her face and a façade of understanding. However, on the inside, she was still a little upset. As Monica had said, she and Ross had done their best to raise her, but now Rachel needed to let go and let her daughter start making her own decisions.

When Emma had mentioned this dance, Rachel had never realized it would make her start worrying about her eldest girl growing up- and maybe away- from her. For the longest time when Emma was still a newborn and toddler, she had seemed to be the only bright thing in Rachel's life.

First dances were a big deal to young girls, Rachel Green-Geller knew.

But to mothers, first dances meant that their young girls were going to be doing something they really had no part in. And slowly, Rachel was going to have to learn to trust, and just let her daughter _be_.

**XXX**


	6. Kiss

**Disclaimer**: Not mine.

**A/N**: I really don't know what else to say about the reviews except: thank you all. I appreciate the feedback and am always eager to hear your views of a story.

I liked this chapter. Oh, and for those wondering how Ben's been doing... he's mentioned in here. He makes a little appearance in the final chapter, too :)

**XXX**

"Mom, how old were you when you had your first kiss?" Emma questioned one cold, December morning as she helped Rachel unload the dishwasher after doing her standard twenty minutes of practicing the piano, a talent that she'd mastered quickly after she'd begged for lessons. Outside, Ross had abandoned "just watching" Sean and Jen play in the yard, and the three were now in the middle of a vicious snowball fight.

Rachel sighed lightly as she recalled a tall boy with light hair and hazel eyes. "Seventh grade, I think."

"It wasn't Dad, was it?" the fourteen-year-old wondered.

At that question, Rachel almost laughed out loud, but somehow kept her giggling to a minimum at the thought. She and Ross had never really explained, in-depth, their crazy past to their children, believing that they should be a little older before they heard the story that was Them. Emma knew, of course, that they hadn't been together the first few years of her life; she had figured out the math herself one day and had calmly asked her parents about it.

"Ooh, no, sweetie, he definitely was not," Rachel said.

Emma laughed. "Oh, right, Aunt Monica always talks about how you two were too cool. Wasn't he dorky then? Not that he isn't now," she added quietly with a small chuckle.

Rachel glanced out the kitchen window that looked into the backyard, and watched her husband of eleven years for just a moment. He had just been tackled by Sean down into the six inches of snow on the ground as Jen pranced around them, dumping more and more snow on top of her father. The scene was a Kodak moment, for sure, and Rachel suddenly wished a camera was nearby so she could snap the shot and keep it forever. Ross never really realized what a good father he was.

"Mom?"

"What?" Rachel asked quickly, snapping back to reality.

"He was dorky then, right?" Emma was looking at her mother with wide, curious blue eyes that made Rachel feel like she was looking at her younger self.

"Yes, he was," Rachel said, remembering the Ross from her teenage days. "No, he wasn't my first kiss, or my first boyfriend." She grinned at her daughter before going back to putting the dishes into the cabinet. "But he was my first _real_ love."

"Really?" Emma seemed surprised by this. "Aunt Phoebe always calls you two 'crabs' or 'clams' or something."

"Lobsters?" Rachel tried with a smile.

"Yeah. Why is that?"

"I'll explain it to you another day when we've got more time. But we've really got to finish cleaning up before we leave to pick up Ben," Rachel insisted.

"You sound like Aunt Monica."

Carol and Susan were visiting some friends in the south, and would not be home in time to pick up Ben. Ross had jumped at the chance to have his college-attending son spend some time with them in Westchester for a few days, before Carol and Susan returned to take him for Christmas. The Geller family was going to pick up the twenty-one-year-old at the airport later that morning.

A silence drifted over Rachel and Emma as the young girl pulled her hair back in a pony-tail, her usual hairstyle. "Why are you so curious?" Rachel questioned lightly.

Emma turned a bit pink, and bent over the dishwasher, pretending to reach to the back of it to grab some "fallen" silverware. "Just wondering."

Rachel stopped what she was doing and cocked her head to the side. "Did you kiss a boy?"

"Mom!"

"What?"

"You say it like it's the most scandalous thing you've heard!" Emma said.

"Ah, so you _have_ kissed a boy," Rachel continued with a slight smirk. "When?"

"I am _not_ discussing this with you," Emma declared in a tone of finality, going back to wiping down the counter.

Rachel smiled, masking the bit of shock that had come over her at the revelation that her daughter had kissed a boy. She had been expecting this, of course; Emma was a pretty, smart, funny girl. What boy wouldn't want to date her?

The thought made Rachel's insides churn a little. Oh, God, what if her daughter got tangled up with the wrong type of boy? Or what if a guy tried to take advantage of her? She wasn't even in high school yet! What could she do? Should she ban her daughter from dating until she was twenty-five?

_Get a grip_, Rachel told herself, and finally said in a much calmer voice than her conscious was using, "If you aren't going to talk to me about _this_, then we're never going to be able to talk about anything."

Emma sighed and said, defeated, "Fine."

"Who was it? Was it that Jeremy guy who came over here that one time a few weeks ago? Oh! Who were all the boys at your party? I can go down all the names on the list-"

"It was Matt Burns," Emma cut in.

Rachel spent a moment in silence, trying to place the name. She finally remembered. "Wasn't he your first crush in elementary school?"

Emma's cheeks colored even more. "Yes."

"That's so sweet!" Rachel gushed, while a tiny part of her wanted to tell her ten-year-old son to start watching this Matt Burns at school and make sure he was a nice, respectable boy. "When did he kiss you?"

"At the end of Lindsey's party last week," Emma said shyly.

"Was it… good?" Rachel had no idea what she was supposed to ask. She resisted the urge to call Monica or Phoebe to demand that they tell her something to say.

"It was just a quick thing," Emma replied simply. "He said he liked me, and he kissed me, and the longest conversation we've had since then was when he asked me if he could borrow a pencil during history and I told him I only had a pen, was that okay? And he said yes. The end."

"Maybe he's just shy," Rachel suggested. "It took your father _so_ long to finally tell me he liked me, and then when he did- well, actually, it was this gift he got me that did, but anyways, he had a new girlfriend-"

"You've told me this story before, Mom," Emma interrupted with a smile.

"Well… all I'm saying is, maybe you have to let him know that it's… okay. It's okay, right?"

"Definitely," Emma said, sounding aggravated. "Ugh, boys are so complicated."

Rachel smiled. "You know, _they_ say the same thing about girls."

Another pause hung between mother and daughter, the dishwasher emptied and the counters cleaned to a sparkling shine. Emma hoisted herself up to sit on the right-angle part of the counter, and Rachel leaned against the one on the other side.

"Honey, just be careful," Rachel finally advised.

"I will," Emma promised. "It's not like we're gonna get married."

"Still, just… don't go too fast or anything. Don't do something you'll regret later."

Emma nodded seriously. "Of course I won't; I'm only fourteen. And if there's one thing you and Dad have always told us, it's to make the right decision."

"When did you get so wise?" Rachel inquired.

"Well, after listening to your advice and wisdom for so long, I guess some of it just rubbed off on me," Emma said.

"Okay, okay, stop sucking up," Rachel joked, crossing her arms over her chest.

Emma considered her mother. "I really thought you'd be freaking out about this."

"Why?"

"Because… you kind of used to make bigger deals about things."

Rachel nodded in understanding and glanced outside again, this time seeing that the father-son-daughter team out there were in the beginnings of making an igloo. "You're growing up," was all she said, but then added, "And you're at the age where it's time for you to make your own decisions about things."

"Erica and I were thinking about what Aunt Monica and Uncle Chandler's reactions would be like to something like this," Emma said with a smirk.

"Well, it depends what it is, who it is, and the circumstances surrounding it," Rachel told her. "And, well, Chandler would make an inappropriate joke no matter what."

"Do you think Dad would freak out if he found out?"

"Yes."

"Mom!" Emma whined. "Seriously."

Rachel mulled over what she thought. Ross was very protective of his children, especially his two girls. "He may, but he may not. You can never pinpoint exactly how your father is going to react to something."

"What am I reacting to?" Ross asked as he entered the kitchen through the back door and shook himself of the snow still covering his pants and jacket, while he patted his wet head of dark hair.

Emma and Rachel shared a look, and then Rachel turned to her husband and said, "Nothing, honey." They'd tell him later.

Sean and Jen bounded into the house behind their father. "What time is Ben's plane getting in?" Sean questioned as he went into the refrigerator and grabbed a soda.

"Yeah, when are we gonna leave to pick him up?" Jenny chimed in, going to stand in front of the counter that her older sister was sitting on.

Ross checked his watch. "His plane gets in at 11:30. Maybe we should go now in case there's traffic," he suggested to his wife.

Rachel nodded. "Sure, we'll meet you guys in the car."

Emma hopped down from the counter and followed her mother to the closet, where they kept the jackets, extra shoes, and odds and ends that had no other place. Normally, all of the contents of the closet would be found all over the house, but Rachel had insisted on tidying it up in anticipation of Ben staying for a few days.

As they were about to exit the house, Rachel stopped and yanked her daughter's ponytail lightly. "Do you think you're going to be dating this boy?"

"I… sort of want to," Emma said with a blush. "If that's okay with you and Dad. But I mean, I'm fourteen, and I'm going to be in high school soon, and I know you had a boyfriend when you were my age because you've told me, and I'm very responsible-"

"Emma, I trust you," Rachel said simply, walking out the door and leaving Emma to follow. She wrapped an arm around her daughter's shoulders when the teen caught up. "Just… let me know what's going on, okay?"

"It's a deal," Emma nodded, smiling and giving Rachel a quick, one-armed squeeze before opening the door to the car and getting in.

Rachel followed, getting into the passenger's side. In the back seats, the kids were already absorbed in their music, comic book, and drawing, respectively.

The big first kiss. It opened so many new, exciting, and sometimes scary parts of life that everyone goes through at some point. Rachel still could remember hers; the rush of feelings, the tinge of confusion, the self-consciousness, the fear of not knowing what to do next.

But if anyone could figure out how to go on from that, it would be her Emma.

**XXX**


	7. Loss

**Disclaimer**: I still do not own Friends. Dang it.

**A/N**: I've got the entire thing, I figured, why not update once a day? You all seem to be liking it, so I don't think anyone's complaining :) Thank you so much for the reviews, and for sticking with me.

This chapter was one I had always planned on writing when I first thought of this whole idea, because this is an important and sometimes life-changing situation people go through. I admit, I used some ofthe emotion I felt, myself, ina similar situation.

**XXX**

"So they liked his idea, decided to use it, and he got the promotion," Monica explained in the Geller's kitchen on a crisp fall day, her face beaming as she told of her husband's achievements at work.

"Well, that's great!" Rachel said enthusiastically. "I always knew Chandler would do well in advertising."

Monica's expression changed to disbelief. "When he first told you he was going to be an intern at the company, you laughed your ass of for an hour and then sarcastically wished him luck."

"Okay, that's… true," Rachel admitted sheepishly. "But I mean, seriously, he made up the stupidest line for a chair!"

The back door opened and both women turned in their seats at the kitchen table to watch Emma, Sean, and Jen troop into the house, all three throwing their backpacks on the floor and jackets on a chair, their cheeks pink from walking home from school in the chilly wind. There was a chorus of, "Hi Aunt Monica", before each began doing separate things.

"Hey, guys, how was school?" Rachel asked, as she did every day, while both Sean and Jenny immediately went to the refrigerator and Emma grabbed a cookie from the jar on the counter.

"Fine," they all replied at the same time.

"Erica and Jack went home," Sean informed his aunt.

"Oh, well, then I better head over there," Monica said, and stood up. "Thanks for the coffee, Rach."

"Thanks for coming over to talk," Rachel returned, giving her friend a meaningful look. Monica nodded with a smile, said goodbye to the kids, and left.

All of her friends had been very supportive lately, and she had gladly accepted all they were willing to give. Leonard Green's sudden passing the month before had hit everyone hard, most of all his eldest daughter- and granddaughter.

Jen took a sip from her juice box and then declared, "I'm gonna go watch TV."

"Don't forget to do your homework!" Rachel reminded her as the young girl left the kitchen. She turned back to her two oldest children; Sean was absorbed in a book, and Emma was skimming the front page of the local newspaper on top of the counter.

Both siblings had been withdrawn since the passing of their grandfather, while Jen had bounced back quickly, not having known 'Poppy' as well as the other two. However, Sean, much like his father, had kept trying to find the goodness in the situation, and talk about fond times. Emma, though, had begun keeping to herself, and refused to speak to anyone about the death of her grandfather. Rachel had been the same, at first, but had then found that she felt better leaning on her husband and friends instead of keeping everything inside.

"What time is Dad gonna be home?" Sean asked as he glanced up from the book. "He finally got his old bug collection from Grandma and Grandpa's house and said he'd show it to me."

Rachel glanced towards her daughter, who normally at this time would say something along the lines of 'bugs are gross' or 'you're such a dork' to her nearly-twelve-year-old brother. However, Emma stayed quiet.

"Uh, his last class finishes at three-thirty, but he has a meeting and is then gonna pick up some Chinese for dinner, so probably not until seven," Rachel answered him.

Sean sighed and closed his book. His dark eyes roamed about the kitchen, and Rachel knew he was in search of something to do, as it seemed he always was. His look brightened suddenly. "I'm gonna head down the street to Henry's house. He told me at school he caught a frog."

Rachel squirmed a little. "All right. Just remember to… wash your hands after you touch it. And to not bring home a frog of your own."

"Gotcha!" he affirmed, and was out the door in a flash.

Standing, Rachel wandered over to the counter, where Emma seemed to have found an interesting article in the newspaper. "Didn't the high school distribute progress reports today?" she questioned after a moment.

Emma didn't respond immediately, but Rachel noticed her bright blues eyes halt from scanning the paper. She tensed a little, and then raised her head. "Oh, uh… yeah."

Rachel rested her arms on the counter and smiled at her daughter. "May I see yours?"

"Uh, yeah, sure…," the fifteen-year-old said tentatively, and took her time going to her backpack, unzipping it, and getting out the envelop that contained her mid-term grades. She seemed to move as slowly as possible.

Emma had always received good grades, her smarts a trait Rachel always insisted she (quite luckily) inherited from her scientist father. In fact, all three children were very bright, and always passed their classes with A's and high B's. None of them had ever come home with anything below an eighty-five average in a class (not that it really counted yet for Jen, who was only in third grade).

So what a shock it was when Rachel opened Emma's ninth grade progress report to find that her oldest daughter was failing two classes- one of them being science, the teen's best subject.

As if knowing her mother's thoughts, Emma avoided all eye-contact and focused on breaking apart the second cookie she had been eating.

"Uh… Em, you _do_ know you have a 'D' in science and history, right?" Rachel asked cautiously, lifting her eyes to examine her daughter's pained expression.

Emma sighed noticeably and tucked some stray hair that had fallen out of her ponytail behind her ear. "Yes," she said in a small voice that was quite unlike her normal loud and outspoken tone.

"What happened?"

"I don't know," Emma admitted honestly, her shoulders sagging, as if saying what she was feeling was one of the hardest things she'd ever done. "I feel like I can't focus."

Rachel softened. "Honey, why didn't you tell me sooner that you were having trouble with schoolwork?"

Rubbing her left arm with her right hand, Emma shrugged. She vacated the counter and began making her way towards the table, and sat down in her normal seat. "You've had a lot to deal with," she murmured sadly.

Rachel followed her daughter and sat down beside her. "Yeah, but so have you. We _all_ have, with Poppy's passing. It's okay to talk about it, sweetie," she said softly, placing her hand over Emma's.

"I knew I was failing," Emma confided. "My teachers warned me a week ago. But I just couldn't… explain to them why I wasn't doing as well. And I didn't want to disappoint you and Dad."

"Emma, the only reason we would have to be disappointed in you right now is because you _didn't_ let us know. We could've helped you. We can _still_ help you." Rachel felt her eyes water, understanding her daughter at this moment more than she could ever know.

"It's just after he died and I went back to school, everyone knew. And I mean it's hard enough adjusting to high school, but this on top of it just put more and more pressure on me, and I felt like I wouldn't be able to meet up to everyone's standards they have for me, because I've never gotten below a 'B' in anything before, and when I started getting these tests and quizzes and homework back with low grades, I didn't know how to react," Emma explained, her voice quivering. "I can't stop thinking about him," she added, a tear managing to slip down her cheek.

"Oh, Emma, none of us can," Rachel said, and she held out her arms. Emma fell into them willingly and burrowed her head into her mother's shoulder. She stroked the fifteen-year-olds head soothingly. "I know you've been having a much harder time with this than Sean or Jen. And the fact that it's taking a toll on your schoolwork is something you really should've just told Dad and I."

"It's been over a month," Emma said, her words muffled. "I've never lost anyone close to me before. When is it going to stop hurting so much?"

Rachel considered her choices. She could lie and say that it was going to all get better very, very soon, and that before she knew it, she'd be able to get on with life and think of her grandfather fondly. But Rachel knew that telling her daughter those things wouldn't be fair to her.

"I don't know, sweetheart. I honestly don't. For some people, it's a matter of days. For other people, weeks, months, maybe even years. It all depends on yourself."

"Are _you_ okay now?" Emma asked, sitting back and wiping her eyes.

Rachel sighed and replied, "Sometimes I think I am. But then other times I just… I miss him so much that I want to scream."

"Well, of course, he was your father, and you were his favorite," Emma nodded in understanding. "You were the closest person to him in the entire world."

Recalling Leonard Green, who seemed harsh and gruff to the outside world, but was a sweet, caring man to his oldest daughter and grandchildren, made Rachel smile just a little. "I was a Daddy's girl, through and through."

Both were quiet for a moment, lost in their separate thoughts, until finally Emma said, "I don't understand why it had to be him."

"I don't either," Rachel agreed dolefully. "We had all thought… after he had had that heart attack when you were little, that he was okay. But apparently… not."

"I miss visiting him," Emma revealed. "Whenever we went he'd always have a gift for each of us, y'know? He'd always give me a bracelet or a necklace, or just something that made me feel special."

"My father did love to spoil you guys," Rachel agreed. "He loved you all so much."

"I was making him a scrapbook before he died," Emma said. "For his birthday."

Rachel frowned slightly. "You never told me that."

"It was a secret thing. I had only just started it anyway…"

Rachel nodded and stared at her daughter. The girl in front of her had obviously been through a lot in the past month, and for a moment, Rachel felt like a failure as a parent. She hadn't even noticed that something bigger than just being withdrawn had been consuming Emma. She was her mother, she should be able to see these things from a mile away, damnit!

Emma had never dealt with the death of a loved one before; the passing of someone you were closer to than most. And, Rachel realized quite suddenly, she _herself_ never really had either.

"So what are we gonna do about these bad grades?" Rachel questioned after a long silence.

"I've already started trying to get some extra credit," Emma said. "My teachers know that I'm a good student; they're willing to give me a few chances to bring my grades back up before the term ends."

"Okay…" Rachel nodded. "And what are we going to do about your mind?"

"What?" the teen asked incredulously.

"You're gonna have to start talking to somebody if you're ever going to feel better," Rachel said kindly. "May it be me, or Dad, or Monica or Chandler or Sean or Jen or the school counselor or maybe just one of your friends. That's how I'm dealing with all of this."

Emma picked at the table. "How would I even start?"

"Just start by saying what you're feeling," Rachel advised.

Considering this, Emma brought her gaze back to her mother and cracked the first smile Rachel had seen on her face in a long time. "Okay."

"Okay," Rachel repeated with a smile of her own, and the two hugged.

"We hug a lot in this family," Emma groaned as they pulled apart, and Rachel laughed in spite of herself, already seeing the old version of her daughter shining through.

"You know, your dad is going to want to see these grades," Rachel reminded her as they both stood.

"Well, maybe we could just… wait until he asks," Emma suggested.

Rachel rolled her eyes and lightly yanked Emma's ponytail, a familiar action she hadn't done since before Leonard had passed away. "Uh huh. Do your homework."

"I will. But right now I'm gonna go see what Jenny-Bean's watching on TV," Emma decided, and she shot one more smile towards her mother before leaving the kitchen.

Rachel stared at the doorway for a long time after she had left, before collapsing back into a kitchen chair.

Death was one of the hardest things a person would ever have to deal with in life, and Rachel knew that she couldn't have shielded her children away from it forever.

She prayed that (God forbid) the next time a situation like this arose, Emma would recall their conversation, and find the strength to keep going.

_And_ that she would get her grades back up.

**XXX**


	8. Driving

**Disclaimer**: ... still no.

**A/N**: I'm glad you all liked the chapter before this one. This story is so lighthearted/fluffy, and it needed a bit of angst/sadness at some point. Though now, I suppose, we're back to cute mother/daughter stuff. What can I say, I like the happy times in life more than the upsetting.

I enjoyed writing this chapter, because getting your permit/license is a really big deal to teens.

(Now re-posted to fix the whole 'break/brake' thing. Sheesh, how dumb am I?)

**XXX**

"I passed! I passed, I passed, I passed!" Emma sang, practically dancing out of a small room off the main area at the Registration of Motor Vehicles to Rachel, who had been patiently sitting and reading a magazine.

Rachel stood up quickly, the magazine forgotten, and clapped her hands excitedly. "You passed?"

"I passed!" Emma repeated, still doing a little jig. The two hugged, and Emma handed a small piece of paper with her picture and information on it to her mother.

"Hey, nice picture," Rachel nodded, beaming. "Oh, honey, I'm so proud of you. You have your permit now!"

"I know!" the freshly-sixteen-year-old squealed. "I can drive! Well, with someone over the age of twenty-one along for the ride, but that's beside the point! I got my permit!"

Rachel grinned at her daughter, who was staring in slight awe at the piece of paper that gave her the right to drive. She fought back the wave of tears that wanted to leak out from her eyes. God, how could her little girl have her permit? Hadn't she just learned how to navigate on her own two feet? It seemed time was flying by.

Emma had been rambling on and on for months about driving. She'd checked the internet for ages and dates, begged her parents to take her out to drive in empty parking lots, and had even begun a countdown in May until the day she turned sixteen and would be able to take the test to get her permit. She'd been so excited she'd insisted that either Ross or Rachel escort her to take the test just two days after her birthday, which led them to this moment.

"So are you all set?" Rachel asked as they exited the RMV.

"Yeah, we can head home now. Hey, can I drive?" Emma nearly pleaded, her blue eyes wide in a manner she had obviously seen Rachel use before to get her way with her husband.

Rachel felt a small wave of panic as they reached the car. "Uh…"

"Oh, come on, Mom! It isn't that far!"

"Em, you've never driven on a main road before," Rachel pointed out, trying to keep the nervousness out of her voice.

Emma shook her head, her hair whipping back and forth. "Yes I have! Daddy let me go around the neighborhood a few times a month ago!"

"Oh, he did, did he?" Rachel asked with raised eyebrows. This was news to her. She'd have to have a little chat with her darling spouse when they got home.

The teenager kept up with the pleading, pouty eyes that Rachel tried, in vain, to avoid, until finally she relented. "Fine, okay, but you have to be really careful. If I give you an instruction, you better listen."

"Uh, Mom, no offense, but your driving kind of sucks," Emma admitted with a smile.

Rachel shrugged. "Yeah, well, it's a lot better now than when I was younger, let me tell you. Your father actually made me drive him around a few times before he let me drive the car we got after we got married alone." As her daughter began giggling, Rachel shook her head. "But that's not the point. I'm better now!" she defended, not completely sure why she needed to stick up for herself.

"Uh huh," Emma nodded, seeming to only do so to pacify her mother. "Aunt Monica always says you drove really irresponsibly when you were my age."

"Yes, well, I _was _really irresponsible at your age," Rachel said. "And excuse me, but have I ever gotten into a car accident? No." She let out a small growl of frustration at how off-topic they now were. "Okay, seriously, promise me you'll listen to my directions."

"I promise," Emma agreed readily. She greedily grabbed for the keys in Rachel's hand, but the older woman pulled them back quickly.

"Now just wait a second. All right. What's the first thing you do when you get into the car?"

"Put the key in the ignition. No, wait, hold down the brake and _then_ put the key in the ignition and start the car," Emma corrected in a textbook manner. "Mom, I know all this."

"I'm just checking!" Rachel said. "You usually go driving with your father, I don't know what crazy things he's taught you."

"Actually, we were right in the middle of a lesson on how to drive with your feet while not looking, but his cell rang and we had to cut it short," Emma said sarcastically, the tone of her voice startling similar to her Uncle Chandler's.

Rachel gave a false smile. "Keep it up and that car we were discussing getting you? Will suddenly not be available."

Emma crossed her arms over her chest in growing frustration. "Sorry. So are we going to stand in the parking lot of the RMV all night? Because I have homework to do."

Staring for a long time at the key chain in her hand, Rachel finally reluctantly handed them over to her daughter, who took them with glee and hopped into the driver's seat. Rachel got in on the passenger's side and sat slowly, immediately putting her belt on.

"Don't forget to-"

"Move the seat, fix the mirrors, turn on my headlights, got it," Emma finished for her, and grinned at her mother. "Mom, I'm a good driver, remember?"

Trying to relax, Rachel nodded. "Yes, honey, you are. I'm sorry, it's just a mother's instinct to worry."

Emma put her foot on the brake, pressed down, stuck the key in the ignition and started the engine. She adjusted her seat and then fixed the mirrors. Rachel watched her do all of this with careful eyes. Driving had become second nature to her again after she and Ross had moved back into the suburbs, and she'd prided herself in becoming a much better driver, since she had to commute to the city nearly every day for work.

The teen was about to put on the radio, but Rachel held out her hand and guided her daughter's own hand back to the wheel. "Let's try without the radio on first, okay?"

"Okay," Emma agreed, and checked over both shoulders and the rearview mirror repeatedly as she switched gears into 'reverse' and slowly inched out of the parking space, cutting the wheel quickly when she had almost reached the end of it.

Once safely a good distance from the space and the surrounding cars, Emma put the car into 'drive' and cut the wheel again, and then pushed down on the gas and drove slowly toward the entrance/exit of the parking lot, turning her right clicker on.

Rachel's hands were clasped tightly, a better and less-obvious way to control her nervousness than grabbing on to the dashboard. "Just take your time going out onto the street," she advised. "Wait until there are no cars coming at all."

Emma was looking back and forth down the road. "Actually, I thought I'd wait until cars were coming from both sides, and then pull out at the last possible second," she said, her face the picture of seriousness.

"Ha ha," Rachel mocked, internally cursing the fact that her oldest daughter had picked up this dry humor. "That car is looking harder and harder to get, isn't it?"

Sufficiently sure no cars were coming, Emma eased her foot onto the gas and pulled out, turning the wheel as she did so and pulling out onto the road. "You can open your eyes," she told her mother.

Rachel peeked through her fingers. "Are we dead?"

"No. But thanks for all the faith you're putting in me."

"Sorry," Rachel apologized, moving around in her seat a little. "Okay, well, we should probably take the back roads home. Less traffic… though your more likely to hit a tree…"

"I'll try to steer clear," Emma promised, and made another right turn down a residential street. They glided along, the fastest Emma going being forty miles an hour.

"Stop sign," Rachel said absently, seeing the red hexagon up ahead at the end of the street. When Emma didn't immediately start slowing down, Rachel repeated a little louder, "Stop sign."

"I see it," Emma assured. She pressed down on the brake and they came to a stop. "Mom, you've got to chill."

Rachel huffed to herself and started to drum her fingers on the center armrest, where her left arm was situated. "Driving is a big responsibility," she said.

"I know," Emma replied, taking her time in making a left turn. "Dad gave me the speech before we left."

"Well, I was over at Monica and Chandler's when he lectured you, so think of this as an extra helping of rules and advice."

"I'm all ears," Emma said invitingly, keeping her eyes on the road, and only letting them stray when she was checking the mirrors.

"Okay," Rachel affirmed, putting her thoughts together. She wasn't completely sure what else to say beyond 'driving is a big responsibility', and she'd already used that. "Always be careful. Always check your mirrors and be mindful of the cars around you. If you're driving your friends- which you aren't allowed to do so alone until six months after you have your license, so you better not before then- never turn around in your seat to talk to them or anything. Don't drink and drive, or do drugs and drive. Well, I don't want you doing either in general, and I know you're a very sensible girl, but just in case. Oh, don't go too far over the speed limit… but don't go too slow, either."

"How slow is 'too slow?" Emma asked.

"Um, okay, remember when we were coming back from Sean's soccer game and your dad was driving and there was a truck with some wood strapped in the back of it in front of us, and he was worried the wood was going to fall out and we'd drive over it?"

Emma shook her head at the memory. "Oh my God, he went at a snail's pace for, like, five miles."

"Yeah," Rachel nodded. "Well, 'too slow' is about ten above that."

Chuckling, the sixteen-year-old came to a four-way stop and halted the car. "Is that it?"

Rachel stared at her daughter with a soft smile. Seeing her sitting there in the driver's seat, her hands on the wheel at the ten-and-two position, her eyes moving to check the mirrors every so often, just hit it home how grown up her little girl was getting. What was left after this? Graduation… going off to college… getting a real job… getting married… having her own children…

"Oh, hey, look! Chandler, Jack, and Erica are outside!" Emma said as they neared the Bing's home. "Can we stop and say hi? I want to rub it in to the twins that I have my permit and they still have to wait two years."

"Sure, we have some time to kill before dinner," Rachel agreed, and Emma cautiously pulled into the driveway, stopping and turning the engine off a good distance away from Chandler's car, which was parked outside of the garage.

As Emma undid her seatbelt and bounded out of the car, brandishing her permit, Rachel sighed. The ability to drive was giving her oldest daughter a whole new realm of freedom that she'd yet to experience. In sixth months, when she got her license, she would no longer even need her parents to be in the car with her when she went places.

Getting her permit may have been one small step for Emma towards reaching independence, but for Rachel, it was one giant leap towards the girl no longer needing her parents.

As Rachel got out of the car and said hello to her brother-in-law, niece, and nephew, who were all congratulating Emma on her achievement, she knew in her heart that even if her daughter was growing up quickly, she'd always have some need for her mother.

**XXX**


	9. Graduation

**Disclaimer**: Friends does not belong to me in the slightest.

**A/N**: Thank you for the reviews and those of you who have kept feeding me back compliments and criticisms. All are greatly appreciated (the little 'break/brake' mix-up from the last chapter has been fixed, heh). I always thought that the way I was developing Emma, she'd bea pretty good driver :) By the way, another story of mine called _TOW the Birthday Video_ takes place in between this chapter and the next.

Two more installments after this. I might write an epilogue so I can introduced Grandma!Rachel, but who knows.

**XXX**

"Oh my God, how many more people before Emma's name is called and we can get outta here?" Sean whined quietly on a breezy spring late afternoon from his seat between his father and younger sister.

Jen, who had been staring at her older sister with rapt attention, glared at her fourteen-year-old brother. "Shut up, you're being rude," she admonished, her voice just as low as his.

Sean made a face at his twelve-year-old sibling as Rachel leaned across from Jen's other side and whispered, with a smidge of threatening thrown in, "She's coming up, just be patient." She sat back, but not before sharing a small smile with her husband.

She could hardly believe where they were: Emma's graduation from high school. The eighteen-year-old had already given her well-organized and inspirational class president speech prior to the distribution of diplomas, along with their guest speaker, the valedictorian, and the salutatorian. All that was left now was getting through the two hundred and ninety-four names of all the graduating students of the senior class and the parting speech by the principal.

Tears formed in Rachel's eyes as she recalled the day so long ago when her little girl had excitedly escorted her by hand down an elementary school hallway towards the preschool class on the first day of school. Flashes of the beginning of every new school year went past in Rachel's mind, some hazier than others. Images of Emma primping for her school dance, first date, and most recently, her senior prom. Times as far back as the first time she sat up, crawled, stood, and walked on her own, way back when they were still living in apartment nineteen in the city and it had seemed Rachel and Ross would never get their acts together and have a future.

_How far we've come_, Rachel thought wryly to herself as she stole a glance of Ross, who she could tell was mentally counting on his program the names left before their daughter's was called.

Rachel set her eyes back on the stage of the outdoor theater they were at where all of the graduations of the high schools in this area took place. Normally, the place would be holding concerts and other shows, but today, it had been decked out with balloons, streamers, and banners in the school colors.

Emma was waiting by the stairs that led up onto the stage, joking around with the girl standing in line behind her that Rachel vaguely recognized from a party her daughter had thrown the month before. She seemed lost in a sea of red robes and hats, Columbus High School's colors ironically being the same as Lincoln High (Ross, Rachel, and Monica's alma mater). Her light-brown hair, now displaying a golden tint thanks to the highlights she'd pleaded for at the beginning of the year, glinted in the waning sunlight. Rachel couldn't tear her eyes away from her graduate, mentally taking a picture of the way she stood, how her hair was nicely straightened, her face the picture of excitement and nervousness rolled into one.

If Rachel were being completely honest with herself, she'd admit that she was afraid there would never again be another moment like this, where she would be able to observe her daughter in such obvious delight. She knew it was a stupid thing to fear, but with college looming just three months away, a part of Rachel felt she was never going to see Emma again.

The eldest Geller child had kept up her marks throughout high school, and in the end earned her well-deserved placement as seventh in the class. She'd excelled at science, a natural talent that had obviously come from her father, and had even lent her piano-playing skills to the music department. Emma had decided during her sophomore year quite suddenly that she'd like to become a psychologist, and had spent much of the rest of her high school career working towards a good school that would help her reach her goal. Four of the six colleges she had applied to had accepted, and three had even offered scholarships.

In the end, Emma had chosen Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, a school she'd always liked immensely. Upon hearing this decision, Rachel's mind had quickly jumped to the fact that North Carolina was quite a ways south of New York. Ross had congratulated their daughter and supported her one-hundred percent, though later after Emma had left to tell her news to her boyfriend, he had admitted that a part of him had hoped she'd decide to attend New York University, where he was head of the paleontology department.

Rachel knew life wasn't fair like that, however. She'd known the second Emma had told her that she'd been accepted to Duke that that was what she was going to end up choosing. Call it mother's instinct.

"Doug Gebb," the principal announced, and the boy ahead of Emma walked proudly up the steps to the podium, received his diploma holder from the woman giving them out (the real ones were coming after the ceremony), shook the principal's hand, moved the tassel atop his hat, and walked off the stage amidst applause.

"Emma Geller," the principal said with a smile, and at her name Ross directed his hand-held camcorder eagerly and began recording the moment. Jen was sitting up high in her seat, snapping pictures like a madwoman. Rachel felt a few tears trickle down her cheeks as her oldest daughter held her head high as she received her diploma, shook hands with the principal, and moved her tassel with a grin towards the crowd before following Doug Gebb down the stairs.

Rachel let out a long stream of breath as Ross put the small camcorder back into it's case. They smiled at each other over Sean and Jen's heads, both of whom were still cheering for their sister. Rachel saw a few tears in her husband's eyes, and knew he was just as proud of their daughter as she was.

The rest of the names fell into the background as Rachel tried to locate Emma's head amongst the crowd of kids already having received their diplomas from the stage. The only name that registered was Thomas Kane, Emma's boyfriend, whom Rachel actually had become very fond of over the time he and her daughter had begun dating seven months ago. Ross snapped a shot of him up on stage, as per request of Emma, who had asked her father beforehand to get at least one shot of Tom for her.

As the ceremony came to a close nearly an hour later, Rachel let out a long sigh of something like relief while the graduates screamed and laughed and cheered and tossed their hats into the air, catching them when gravity pulled them back down. So this was it. Twelve years of grade school, plus three years before that in preschool and kindergarten, and this was what it culminated to.

Rachel could not have been prouder.

After locating Emma and congratulating her repeatedly, the family took a few pictures together.

"Okay, uh, Sean and Jenny, stand on either side of Emma," Ross instructed as families and friends shouted and whooped around them in the parking lot of the concert center. "Emma, hold up your diploma. All right. Okay, Rachel, get in it with them. Yeah. Oh, that's gonna be one for my desk!" he exclaimed with a grin.

"Right next to your 'Dinosaurs Were Dads Too' coffee mug?" Emma asked, tongue-in-cheek. Rachel stifled a laugh.

"Just one more; a group one," Ross said, ignoring his daughter's jab at his office paraphernalia. "Hey, Tom, do you mind taking a picture for us?"

Tom grinned, running a hand through his short red hair. "Yeah, sure," he agreed.

The Geller family stood together, and Rachel wrapped an arm around Emma's shoulders and squeezed lightly right before Tom took the picture. He handed the camera back to Ross, and after a few more shots, Emma promised to be home as soon as she could to join her post-graduation party with family and friends, and was off to capture a few moments with her fellow graduates.

Rachel, Ross, Sean, and Jen all made their way through the maze of the parking lot, reaching their car with some difficulty because of the amount of people milling around. They got in and inched their way towards the exit.

"That was the longest thing I've ever sat through in my entire life," Sean declared wearily, throwing his head back against the headrest. "And that includes that one field trip to the wax museum where they lectured us on the different ways to use wax for like, five hours. At least next time it'll be _my_ graduation."

"I liked Emma's speech," Jen decided. "I really liked that one thing she said about life being like chapters, and that graduation was just the end of another chapter, but also the beginning of the next."

"I hope Darwin is okay," Sean said randomly with a worrisome tone he only seemed to adapt when something was wrong with the family dog. They'd had the beagle for over two years. "He's still limping."

"Seany," Jen groaned, "his broken leg has been fine for a month, you're making the limping thing up. What time do you think Emma is gonna come home?"

"I don't know," Rachel sighed, her thoughts elsewhere.

Ross smiled softly and glanced at his wife, sensing her funky mood. "She did it," he said quietly as Jen and Sean argued good-naturedly in the back.

"Yeah, she did," Rachel agreed, her voice choked.

They made their way home, back to the group of people waiting to celebrate this momentous occasion with Emma: Monica, Chandler, Erica and Jack, Phoebe, Mike and Christopher, Jack and Judy, Sandra- even Joey and his wife Alex had flown out from California for the event. It meant so much to Rachel (and Ross, too, she knew) that their friends and family had all insisted on being at their home when Emma returned.

Rachel looked out the window at the passing sights: the trees thriving, the flowers blooming, the weather perfect as the sun kept descending behind the horizon.

And so there it was. Emma's final year as a true resident of Westchester, New York before heading off to North Carolina was nearing it's close. All she had left was three more months of goofing off with her friends, spending time with her boyfriend, enjoying her family's company, buying the things she'd need while at college, and packing up her belongings.

A graduate. Eighteen years old. Going off to Duke. Starting her new life, far away from her family in New York.

The thoughts brought tears to Rachel's eyes, because it suddenly hit her, like a bolt of lightning, that her little girl…

…Was no longer a little girl.

**XXX**


	10. Legal

**A/N**: Ah, I can't believe you reviewers! You all just make my day. When I read them and you tell me it's affected you in some way, I just feel so glad, because I strive to try and make the readers sort of connect with the characters/situations.

I'm not gonna lie, this chapter is random and is basically Emma learning about Rachel, Monica and Phoebe and some more about their past. Only one more chapter after this... though I might write an epilogue when I find the time, but it'd be a while.

**XXX**

"So do you feel any older?" Phoebe asked Emma from the back seat of Rachel's car, while Rachel drove steadily through traffic into the city and Monica fiddled with the radio in the passenger's seat.

"Eh, I don't know," Emma said with a shrug. "I definitely don't feel twenty-one!"

"Well, your birthday was only yesterday; sometimes you need to let it sink in," Monica advised, turning in her seat to talk with Phoebe and Emma.

Rachel smiled to herself as they kept chatting in the background. It was nearly impossible for her to comprehend that her oldest child, her Emma, was now legal in the entire sense of the word. She could drive, vote, buy alcohol, and nearly anything else she could ever want. Except maybe rent a car, you had to be twenty-five to do that.

Emma, who was in the middle of the fall semester of her junior year at Duke University, had decided to splurge for a flight home for her birthday weekend, since she had lucked out and didn't have any classes on Fridays and had some days stored away to take off from work. Rachel, Ross, Sean, and Jen were all happy to have her home, as they didn't see her that often during the school year.

In honor of the big day, Phoebe had decided that she, Monica, and Rachel should take the college student out for a drink with "the girls" in the city following her birthday dinner with the gang in Westchester.

"Oh yeah," she said, "we used to have some great girl's nights when we all lived in the city as three single women. Not that being married and having kids is a bad thing," she assured.

Emma smiled shyly. "You know, sometimes… I envy you guys."

"Why's that, sweetie?" Rachel asked as they began joining the hustle and bustle of New York City. Silently, she thanked God that the place they intended to go to was in a quiet area.

"Well, you all have this amazing friendship that's gone on for… ever," Emma admitted. "I really want something like that."

Monica, Rachel and Phoebe all grinned at each other briefly. "Well, you really have to work at it," Rachel said.

"Yeah, it isn't always easy," Monica agreed. "Actually, usually, it's really annoying."

"Especially now that everyone lives farther apart," Phoebe added. "I mean, you all in the suburbs and me in the city and Joey across the country… plus we all have families now…"

"Wow, can you believe we've all been friends for almost thirty years?" Rachel asked, astonished.

"Technically, it's been longer than that," Monica said.

"What?"

"Well, I mean, me and Phoebe and Ross and Chandler and Joey were all friends before you came running in with your wedding dress and spoiled attitude," Monica pointed out with a hint of playfulness at her last words. She turned towards the back seat again and sent a smirk towards Emma and Phoebe.

Rachel was about to retort when she realized: Monica was right.

She'd never considered it in-depth before, but she had to admit now that really it was luck that she had entered Central Perk that wet day and stumbled into an already-existing tight-knit group of five friends. Really, if Rachel was being honest, they could've lasted these three decades without her. They'd done it fine for at least a year before she'd entered their lives, anyway.

"Yes," Rachel finally said, "But then again, how would you have lived without me?"

"Um, also, if Mom hadn't joined your weirdly-dynamical group, she probably never would have ended up with Dad, which would mean we wouldn't be celebrating my twenty-first birthday right now," Emma piped up. She crossed her arms over her chest and surveyed the other three women.

"Now _that_ would be a tragedy," Monica insisted.

"Yeah, I mean, life without Emma Geller? The world wouldn't be able to rotate," Phoebe said cheekily.

"Wait, so you only care that I got accepted into their little clique because it eventually ended up bringing _you_ into the world?" Rachel asked as she spotted a parking spot up ahead.

Emma took a moment in mock-consideration. "Yes," she determined seriously.

"Okay, now we're just talking stupid," Monica said.

Phoebe nodded and said, "Yeah, we haven't even started drinking yet. Let's save the crazy talk for after I've got at least one Long Island Iced Tea in me."

Rachel parallel parked with caution, and once satisfied with her job exited the car with the other women and paid the meter. The four headed down the street towards their destination.

"So have you guys been here before?" Emma asked as they reached the classy bar and entered.

"Just a few times over the years," Monica answered as they found a table and sat down.

Emma took the spot beside her mother and looked at her with dawning realization. "So whenever you said you were going into the city at night for a meeting, you three were getting together at random bars?"

Rachel smiled secretively. "Well, honey, just because we all had families didn't mean we forgot about each other. And we only lied because we didn't want the guys to feel hurt that they weren't invited."

"_And_ it added some mystery and suspense," Phoebe added. "What girl doesn't love that?"

A waiter came over and they ordered their drinks. They were brought over quickly, and Rachel raised her Cosmopolitan for a toast. "Okay, now, I'd like to make a toast to my beautiful, talented, grown-up daughter," she said, her eyes growing a little watery. Emma smiled broadly. "It feels like just yesterday she was a tiny little baby who called for round-the-clock attention, but look at her now: a twenty-one-year-old on the way to receiving her PhD."

"To a wonderful young lady," Phoebe interjected, her Long Island Iced Tea held high.

Monica nodded, raising her Sidecar a little higher. "Who somehow has grown up be completely normal, despite the people who surround her daily," she added with a smirk.

Emma laughed and the four clinked glasses with a, "To Emma!". However, before anyone could take a sip, she halted them. "Wait, wait, one more toast. To my amazing mother, who gave me life and helped make me what I am today. I am eternally grateful for the twenty-five hours it took you to have me. And to all of my aunts and uncles, of course."

Rachel watched her daughter out of the corner of her eye over her drink. It was an incredibly weird feeling to watch her eldest daughter with an alcoholic beverage in hand, smiling and laughing with Phoebe and Monica and acting just like 'one of the girls', especially considering three out of the four of these 'girls' were over fifty. She could recall the first time Emma had ever tasted something other than milk; the first time she ate solid food; the first time she spoke; the first time laughed (well, for her, anyways).

"You guys, thanks so much for taking me out," Emma said happily as she sipped her martini. "I feel so grown up, getting to be included in a girl's night with you three. It's like some sort of privilege."

"We're happy to have new meat amongst our ranks," Phoebe said cryptically.

"So what do you guys usually do when you get together?"

The three older women all smirked at each other. "Usually our lives, work, our families… but mostly… _gossip_," Monica said seriously, in a very un-Monica-like way that reminded Rachel so much of the days when they were roommates and would stay up all night talking.

"Finally, I get to be included in the gossip!" Emma exclaimed, honestly pleased. "What are we talking about tonight?"

"Anything," Monica said.

"Everything," Rachel added.

"Tonight, do not think of us as your aunts and mother," Phoebe declared, and Rachel noted that they all had already finished their first round of drinks. "Tonight, we're just four friends."

"And, since it's your birthday celebration, we'll start with you," Monica said, and three pairs of eyes immediately zoned in on the college student. "How's that boyfriend of yours?"

Emma colored noticeably and Rachel felt only a hint of awkwardness at discussing her daughter's college boyfriend. "I don't know," Emma admitted, her cheeks flaming in a similar way to her father. "Rob is great, but… it's still sort of new, we're just laying the groundwork. I mean we've only gone out on one date, and it was just for coffee at a local café. He's very gentlemanly."

"Well… that's a little boring for girl's night," Phoebe said as their second round of drinks came. Rachel, having agreed to be the designated driver (though, they weren't planning on drinking _too_ much), grabbed for her simple sparkling water.

"Well then, since it's my celebration, how 'bout _I _get to ask the questions?" Emma suggested with an evil smirk and glitter in her eyes.

"This could be dangerous," Rachel said with a laugh. "We all know how inquisitive you are."

"C'mon, just answer a few simple questions," Emma pleaded, using the big-eyed pout maneuver.

"Eh, what's the harm?" Monica said, and nodded for her niece to go ahead.

"Okay… how did you all meet?"

"Em, you know the story," Rachel pointed out, remembering the numerous times she and the others had relayed different bits and pieces of their lives before they all settled into family life and everyone still lived in the city.

"I know, but I've only ever heard the abridged version. I want to hear all of it," Emma insisted stubbornly. "Plus, I mean, your lives before you all became domestic must be equal to a soap opera or TV show or something."

Phoebe shrugged. "This could take a while."

"We've got time."

"All right," Rachel relented, moving up close to the circular table they were seated around. The three others did the same and Rachel felt almost as if the noise of the bar had faded away, and the only thing left to hear was her voice. "Well, they all knew each other before I entered the picture-"

"Very rudely, might I add," Monica interrupted with a grin towards her best friend of decades. "We were a happy little group for over a year until your mother came barging in."

Emma seemed riveted, a smile fixed on her face that showed no signs of falling. Rachel knew tonight some things may be revealed that her daughter had never known before about the six adults she loved, but, she figured, the girl was old enough by now.

"Right, I entered their lives in a wet wedding dress. It was in Central Perk," Rachel continued. "And it was established quite easily that I was going to live with Monica."

"How gracious of you," Emma said with a smile towards her aunt.

"Well, we didn't have much of a choice but to let her into our lives," Monica said with a mock-sigh. "She was on the phone with her father, and had told him she was going to stay with me instead of go home."

"And we both lived there together for… how long? Six years?" Rachel questioned.

"Six years," Phoebe agreed, "Because remember, after the marriage fiasco you came to live with me because Chandler moved in with Monica?"

"Right," Rachel nodded.

"Um… marriage fiasco?" Emma asked with interest.

"We'll get to that," Rachel said with a wave of her hand. "Well, so we were roommates, and we really had some great times. Uh, on my first Valentine's Day with them we actually set a trash can on fire in the apartment… but some cute firemen came to save the day. And Pheebs would come and sleep over all the time and the three of us would have these crazy sleepovers… we had a lot of fun being young, single women. I couldn't have asked for anyone better than these two to help me transition into, well, normal life," she said with a grin and a nod to two of her oldest friends. "You know, guys came in and out of our lives, but our friendship always stayed. Of course later it felt like there was a _third_ roommate after Monica met _Richard_…"

"Was Richard the eye doctor?"

"Yes, the eye doctor who was a whole _you_ older than her," Phoebe affirmed.

Emma laughed. "I can't picture you with anyone but Chandler," she said to her aunt.

"Mm, well, Chandler was still very immature back then. Not that he isn't too different today." Monica winked, then turned her attention to Rachel. "And _excuse_ me, but after you started dating Ross? He was there _all_ the time," she informed Emma.

"Yeah, how long did you and Dad date before breaking up?"

Rachel considered for a moment, and her thoughts flashed back to that horrible night when she'd lost half of herself. Thank God she'd ended up getting it back. "A year."

Phoebe noticed her friend's hesitance. "It was a bad break-up."

"Well they usually aren't fun," Emma agreed in understanding. "What did you guys break up over?"

"That's a story for a different time," Rachel said firmly. She wasn't completely sure she _ever_ wanted her children to know the messy details surrounding her break-up with their father. The only second-generation Geller who knew the truth was Ben, from when he and Rachel had finally discussed it over a pitcher of margaritas.

Emma picked up on her mother's change of mood and hopped over to another subject. "So when did you and Uncle Chandler officially start dating?" she asked Monica, having never heard the complete rendition of that story.

Monica smiled. "Well, it was actually… in London."

"London?"

"Yes, London. At… your father's wedding to his second wife, Emily."

Emma stared at her aunt, and then took a long sip of her drink before looking to Rachel for confirmation. "Emily… the mean British woman?"

"Right," Rachel nodded, and scrunched up her nose. "The British Bitch," she added under her breath.

Phoebe cleared her throat. "But, she doesn't matter now anyway."

"Right, so, um, Chandler and I sort of…" Monica actually blushed. "You're probably going to think it's crazy that a person over the age of fifty is using this phrase, but we… well, 'hooked up'."

Emma's jaw fell and Rachel and Phoebe both burst out laughing. "Oh my God. That's so… unlike you!"

"Hey, we were in a different country!" Monica defended as her friends kept on laughing. "Anyways… we had said it was only going to be a one-time thing, but when we got back to the city… we decided to start dating."

"In secret," Phoebe added. "They didn't tell any of us."

"Well then how'd you all find out?" Emma was smiling and her eyes were bright, and Rachel was reminded of herself as a young twentysomething, eager to hear crazy tales.

"Well, Joey figured it out first-"

"Joey!"

"Yeah, surprising, isn't it?" Rachel nodded. "He kept it a secret for a while, but then one day I picked up the phone and I heard Monica and Chandler having a _very_ interesting conversation-"

"Which you do not need to repeat, thank you," Monica instructed, her face beet-red.

"And then I found out… well, let's just say I saw them doing something you don't want to see them doing," Phoebe said.

Emma stared. "Oh."

"Yeah, we were at your dad's old apartment when he was first interested in buying it," Rachel told her, "and we saw them from the window… that's how your dad found out, too."

"Wow! How long did you hide this for?"

"About six months," Monica replied, embarrassed. "Okay, enough about me. Let's move on! Since this evening seems to be turning into stories of romance, how 'bout Phoebe goes next?"

"Fine, I have nothing to hide. Unlike some people…" Phoebe smirked wickedly at Monica.

"How'd you meet Mike?" Emma inquired in a girly, spill-your-story sort of way.

"Well, it's actually a funny story. See, Joey and I decided to double-date, except we were going to pick each other's dates. So I set him up with a friend of mine, and apparently he had forgotten and at the last second found the first guy named 'Mike' he could get and brought him along to dinner."

Emma was giggling. "That's such a Joey-type thing to do!"

"Wait, it gets better," Phoebe said. "So we go to dinner and they're sitting there making up all of this crap about how they met and how they knew each other way back in high school… well, finally I figured out that they never knew each other, and I stormed out. Then a few days later, Mike showed up at Central Perk to apologize, and we went out… and, well, that's it!"

Rachel looked at her. "Uh, what about the fact that you two broke up because he didn't want to get married, and then he followed you to Barbados and proposed, even though David was going to?"

Emma blinked at Phoebe. "What?"

Phoebe shrugged as she sipped her drink. "Oh, yeah, that too. Okay! Next up! Rach?"

Rachel hid behind her glass for a moment, and then set it down. "Well, there are just so many stories to choose from. And you've heard all of them," she reminded her daughter.

"Yes, but it's girl's night, and everyone is sharing!" Emma smiled convincingly. "What _I_ want to hear about is this 'marriage fiasco'."

Phoebe laughed. "Oh man, that's a good one."

Monica glared at her. "Yeah, at least you were in on the secret. Ross didn't even tell us!"

Emma was looking back and forth, confused. "Mom?"

Rachel took in a deep breath. "Okay, well, you know how I mentioned that your dad and I were on-again, off-again a lot before we finally settled down?"

"Yeah…"

"Well, uh, we all had gone to Las Vegas to visit Joey, because he was doing a movie, which ended up getting shut down anyway… but um, well, your father and I sort of… had too much to drink," Rachel finally admitted sheepishly. She'd never shared this particular story with her children. But, hell, it was her daughter's twenty-first birthday. The young adult was old enough to know the truth now.

"You guys got drunk in Vegas?" Emma asked incredulously. "But that's so… weird. I mean, Dad?"

"Oh, believe me, we were a lot more…"

"Immature?" Phoebe helped.

"Spiteful?" Monica added, and for a second the image of Rachel and Ross with ink all over their faces came to mind.

"Yes, thank you," she said with a glare. "Well, so we had too much to drink… and somehow we got the idea in our heads to get married."

Emma gasped, enthralled. "You didn't!" she squealed, nearly spilling some of her drink onto herself.

Rachel blushed. "Yes… we did."

"Oh my God, you and Dad were married twice?"

"Really, I wouldn't count the first time," Rachel defended, mentally comparing her two weddings to Ross. Well, comparing what she could even distinguish from her drunken haze of the first one, and the elegance of their second.

Phoebe cocked a brow. "Even though he was totally in love with you."

"Yeah, well, we got the divorce and forgot about it; he never mentioned anything about his feelings after that."

"I cannot believe this," Emma said, shaking her head back and forth. "What, did you have other children before me, too?"

"No!" Rachel exclaimed.

"Though, you were a big enough surprise in itself," Monica said. "Oh man, I'll never forget the moment when it all came together and I finally figured it out…"

"Hey, at least you didn't have to cover for her!" Phoebe said.

"Yeah, but everyone thought _I_ was pregnant, including Chandler and Ross!" Monica reminded her friend.

Emma's jaw dropped for the second time that night and she whipped her head around to face her mother. "You had Phoebe _lie_ for you?"

"No! She was just… covering! Until I built up the courage!"

Though on the outside she seemed indignant, on the inside Rachel was laughing at the whole matter. It was hard to believe how different she'd become after finally getting back together with Ross for good. He'd helped her grow up, along with their three children.

"My God! Are these girl's nights usually so scandalous?" Emma was giggling again.

All three older women said, "No," at the same time.

"We had a bit of a crazy past," Monica said.

"That's the understatement of the year," Emma responded.

Phoebe pushed some blonde hair out of her face. "Well, I think it's safe to say you're officially one of us, after hearing all of that!"

"If only you'd reveal a little more about that boyfriend of yours back at Duke…," Rachel prodded, always wanting to be a mother in the know.

Emma sighed. "Okay, fine, fine. And I'm only giving in this easily because I've had three drinks," she announced, and Rachel cringed only slightly. It was her daughter's twenty-first birthday (that seemed to be her mantra for the evening), she could have some fun.

As Emma began going into the details of Robert Pryor, Rachel let the words wash over her and simply stared at her daughter. She was so grown up, so mature, so smart, so beautiful (she, along with her siblings, had lucked out in receiving the Geller nose, as opposed to the Green nose). Had she and Ross really created this amazing human being over twenty-one years ago? It seemed almost impossible now that something this great had ever come from them.

And here they were, celebrating her birthday. She had been on earth for two full decades plus one year. Emma was now really, truly, an adult.

As the young woman laughed along with her two aunts over her new boyfriend's antics, Rachel smiled to herself and had to pat herself on the back, along with Ross and all of the other stable adults set as role models in her daughter's life.

They'd all done a good job.

**XXX**


	11. Wedding

**Disclaimer**: Wow, still not mine after eleven chapters...

**A/N**: Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed this story. I've appreciated hearing your feedback :)

Last chapter... maybe. I'll write an epilogue if I find the time, but it may not be for a while. This is pure fluffyness, because it's just what I do.

**XXX**

The sound of silverware tapping against glass came across the speakers. "Can I have your attention please?"

The entire crowd turned their heads in one swift motion towards the stage at these words, including Rachel, who grasped one of Ross's hands in hers once they were facing the correct way. Wife and husband shared a small smile before turning their attention back to the lead singer of the jazz band that was currently residing on top of the stage.

"I'm happy to introduce to you all for the very first time… Mr. And Mrs. Devin Russo!"

Applause broke out amongst the large group as the young newlyweds stepped inside of the room holding hands and beaming. The groom was a tall, tanned, handsome man with dark hair and hazel eyes, who had the look of an easy-going, friendly person. The bride was radiant in her white dress, her light brown hair falling past her shoulders in soft curls while her blue eyes sparkled with ever-present curiosity. Her brilliant smile was infectious.

Of course, Rachel had expected no less of her oldest daughter on the twenty-six-year-old's wedding day.

She watched carefully with tears in her eyes as Emma sent a grin towards her new husband before letting her gaze sweep across the room once more. Two pairs of identical blue eyes locked, and Rachel stood with Ross to approach their daughter as Devin's parents did the same.

As they got closer, Rachel felt a few tears manage to slip down her cheeks. She hadn't spoken with Emma since right before Ross had walked her down the aisle, when she had still been a single young woman, her daughter. But now she was a married woman, someone's wife, linked forever to another human being that she loved unconditionally, and visa versa.

Rachel had had her doubts when Emma first brought home Devin Russo, a good-looking Italian guy who reminded her just a little of Joey, despite the fact that their personalities and mindsets were completely different. She'd been able to tell just from the phone call she'd received from her daughter four days before they were going to visit that this was serious, and so she'd been on her best behavior when the young couple arrived.

With all three kids either in college or out in the real world, Rachel and Ross both cherished the times their children came home to visit their parents. As luck would have it, both Sean and Jen were home for the summer when their older sister decided to bring her boyfriend home, and so the entire family had gotten to meet him at once.

Of course, the 'entire family' also seemed to include Monica, Chandler, twenty-three-year-old twins Jack and Erica (who both had also mysteriously agreed to go home the same week as their cousin), Phoebe and Mike (their twenty-two-year-old son Christopher couldn't get back to New York in time), not to mention a very well-timed call from Joey in California.

Seeing Devin's shocked and overwhelmed face when all these strangers had first showed up at the house right after they'd arrived had been priceless, but Rachel had felt for him, and so had decided to go into the Girlfriend's Gracious Mother role. Soon enough, though, Devin was easily joking and sharing stories with the rest of the group, and by the end of the evening when it was time to go home, everyone gave him their approval, much to Emma's delight.

Coming out of her reminisces, Rachel wrapped her arms around her daughter in a tight and nearly bone-crushing hug. "Oh, honey, you're so beautiful. I'm so happy for you," she mumbled in her tears.

Emma's eyes were watering also as she stepped back and Rachel held her at arm's length. "Thank you, Mom."

Ross got in between them so he could take his turn with their daughter. "Em, you are just…," he trailed off, tears steaming down his own cheeks, and he pulled Emma close to him. When they broke apart, Ross tapped her on her nose, something he'd done when she was a little girl, and then moved on to shake hands with Devin.

Sean and Jen appeared by their sister's side next, and they simultaneously threw their arms around their big sister so all three siblings were locked in a tight embrace as they laughed. In all their exuberance Sean's glasses (he'd developed nearsightedness in his late teen years) were nearly knocked off, and one of Jen's earrings got caught in Emma's hair, and the three chuckled as Sean fixed his glasses and then slowly removed his younger sister's earring from his older sister's hair.

Rachel watched this, and it brought upon another wave of tears at seeing all three of her children so grown up and getting along. Emma, twenty-six, married with her PhD; Sean, twenty-two and on his way to becoming a lawyer; and Jen, twenty and fresh from her second year of college, with hundreds of possibilities ahead of her. It made Rachel feel so old, and yet, so proud to see that her kids had all matured into wonderful adults.

Ross had finished congratulating Devin and was now happily chatting with Monica and Chandler as the rest of the guests milled about the room until the bride and groom's immediate families had finished with them. Rachel stepped forward, and Devin turned at that moment and smiled at the sight of his mother-in-law.

"You better take great care of my daughter," she said in a mock-stern voice, though it came out weak because of the lump in her throat and her stuffy nose from crying.

Devin's happy smile turned into a bright grin, revealing his white teeth, all perfectly straight thanks to braces as a teen. "Oh I will, I promise. _Mom_," he added in exaggeration.

Calling Rachel 'Mom' had been a joke they'd shared between them ever since he and Emma had become engaged in the previous late fall. He would never seriously call the elder woman that, but he always did in jest.

They hugged and she squeezed his tall form quickly before stepping back. "Welcome to the family."

Devin nodded and looked around at all of the Gellers' relatives- and friends who were like relatives- and then looked back to Rachel, his hazel eyes twinkling. "Thank you. I couldn't have asked for a better one to marry into."

Phoebe approached at this moment to congratulate Devin as Emma was nearly lifted off the ground by a hug from Joey as Monica berated and Chandler laughed close by. Jack and Erica (along with their dates) were talking animatedly with Jen and Sean, probably recounting tales of college, as Christopher whispered with his girlfriend. Jack and Judy were sitting at a table, discussing something-or-other with Sandra and her date, a man named Steven she'd been seeing for a few months now.

Everyone looked happy, which made Rachel feel all the more warm and fuzzy inside. She let her gaze wander back to her daughter and new son-in-law, who were sharing a quick kiss before being swarmed upon by another wave of guests. They made a handsome couple, and balanced each other well, and suddenly Rachel was hit by some of the similarities they shared with she and Ross.

Half an hour and the bride and groom's first dance together later, Rachel and Ross were sitting at one of the empty tables as a few couples swayed on the dance floor. Rachel's face brightened as Ben and his heavily pregnant wife, Samantha, stopped by to chat.

Ben had married only two years prior, though he and Sam had dated on-and-off for at least six years before that. He had matured into a very responsible and caring man, and the talents he'd begun to show during college at design had lent a hand towards becoming a successful architect. Ross, Rachel, Carol, and Susan (who were immersed in conversation with a few other guests three tables over), were all so proud of him for his accomplishments, especially the time he took off to fly to third-world countries and offer his services in designing and building houses.

"Only two more months!" Rachel said excitedly as they began discussing the baby. "God, it'll be the first grandchild…"

"Yeah, this kid sure is gonna have a lot of adults to choose from," Ben agreed with a nod. "Looks like Sean's found a companion for the evening," he added with a chuckle as his eyes strayed to his much younger step-brother, who was hamming it up for a pretty brunette as Jen and the friend she'd brought rolled their eyes nearby.

"Well, you know how he hates bringing dates to places…," Rachel pointed out.

"Yeah, so he can pick someone up when he gets there," Ross sniggered immaturely, and Rachel gave him a shocked look and hit him lightly on the arm.

"They make such a great couple," Sam said, indicating Emma and Devin, who were talking with her Maid of Honor- and best friend- Kristin. "I _love_ her dress."

"So we're gonna get some food, you want anything, Rach? Dad?" Ben asked as he took his wife's hand in his.

"I'm all set," Rachel said.

"Thanks, but I'm good too," Ross added, and with a grin Ben and Sam headed towards the buffet.

"It's hard to believe he's going to be a father soon," Rachel said wistfully as she watched Ben out of the corner of her eye, recalling a little blonde boy calling her "Aunt Rachel" and longing for a sibling. Now she was just "Rachel", sometimes "Mom Number Three" if he was in a playful mood, with plenty of half-siblings and his own kid on the way.

Ross's eyes grew watery. "I know, I feel like just yesterday I was holding him in my arms for the first time… and now we're going to be grandparents in two months."

"Yes, well, you won't have to worry about more grandchildren for a little while," a voice said jokingly, and Emma appeared behind her parents. She kissed both of them on the cheek before seating herself. "Oh, it feels good to sit… I haven't been in a resting position for what feels like _hours_…"

"Well, that's what happens when you get married," Ross said with a shrug. "Where's Devin? I thought you two were attached at the hip."

Emma chuckled. "He's off with his two groomsmen. They're probably trying to coerce him into smoking a cigar right at this moment."

Rachel scrunched up her nose. "Those things are disgusting."

"Oh, he knows he isn't allowed to have them that often anymore," Emma assured. Her new husband had a tendency to once and a while smoke a cigar, usually when he was with his male friends. He'd picked up the habit at work; being a businessman on Wall Street, he was often offered cigars by his clients and fellow co-workers.

"So you're taking a breather?" Rachel asked.

Emma's eyes were bright and dancing, and she did a once-over of the room before turning her gaze back to her parents. "Actually, I came over here to thank you guys."

"For what, sweetie?" Ross asked.

"For… well, everything, really," Emma said with a laugh. "I mean, obviously the whole giving me life thing, and then that raising me part, instilling good morals, all that jazz. And of course, for this amazing wedding. I promise this isn't all the champagne and wine talking."

Rachel shook her head. "Em, we love you. We'd do anything to make you happy."

"I know," Emma nodded with a soft smile. "And that's why I'm thanking you."

Ross stood and then leaned over to hug his oldest daughter. "You're very welcome." He got to full height once more and fixed his suit jacket. "Now if you ladies will excuse me, I'm going to go to the men's room and then make the rounds."

After he had left, Rachel and Emma sat in easy silence for a time. All Rachel could see when she looked at her daughter was a little girl sitting on the floor playing with toys, or an excited kid telling stories a mile a minute about school, or a wide-eyed child setting her gaze upon her siblings for the first time, or a pre-teen dancing around the house to loud music, or a teenager laughing heartily with her friends, or a graduate receiving her diploma, or a college student studying hard at her desk the times she came home, or a woman calling during grad school to complain to her mother about how hard getting her PhD was, or an overjoyed fiancée announcing she was engaged.

Her daughter's entire life flashed before her eyes, and in a instant, Rachel found herself back in this moment, in this reality, but now seeing the future: Emma and Devin buying their very own house in the suburbs; light-haired, dark-eyed grandchildren (or maybe dark-haired, light-eyed?); spoiling said grandchildren rotten when they visited; Sean and Jen settling down themselves; growing old with Ross…

"Mom?"

Rachel started, her sight flickering over to her daughter's own blue eyes. "Yes?"

Emma was smiling, the picture of happiness with a hint of confusion. Rachel found herself staring at a woman who looked so much like herself, that it was nearly a mirror image, minus the dyed hair (those pesky grays were taking over!) and wrinkles ("laugh lines", she liked to call them). And, of course, the different personalities, but you'd have to dig deeper to notice that.

"What are you thinking about?" Emma questioned.

Rachel grinned. "How proud I am of you."

"That's all?" Emma seemed skeptically. "Not that I don't appreciate you being proud of me, of course. I'm proud of you too."

"Really?"

"Well, yeah," Emma said shyly. "I mean… you're my role model."

A tear slipped down Rachel's cheek and she stretched out her arms. Emma fell into them, and the entire moment was so familiar Rachel couldn't help but stroke her daughter's hair, just as she had done when Emma was a child.

But she wasn't a child anymore, that was for sure. And it wouldn't do well to dwell in the past, longing to go back. Just getting to watch Emma Geller (now Emma Geller-Russo) grow into this amazing woman was enough for Rachel.

Besides, they all still had the rest of their lives to look forward to.

**XXX**


End file.
